Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Good Neighbors and Bad Neighbors!

We have good neighbors and we have bad neighbors.

The good neighbors are great. They are good with the kids and they will even come over and watch them for us for free. They bring us fresh baked goodies and other food items. If we need to borrow $20, it's never a problem. They are the perfect neighbors.

The bad neighbors aren't so great. They are extremely needy. They call us 10-20 times a day at all hours for no reason at all. They scream and yell obscenities at each other late into the night. They promise to do something for us and then when the time comes they don't show up, don't answer the phone and don't answer the door. They constantly ask for rides to the liquor store (they can't drive themselves because most times they're half in the bag). Better yet, they get Jules to go and pick up their liquor for them. This can happen daily for weeks at a time! And best of all, they drink all the time. It's always something with these guys.

So what? Lot's of people have good and bad neighbors. Well it just so happens that our good and bad neighbors are the same people! Sometimes they are just fine other times they are a complete pain in the ass. It's a good thing that they have those good qualities otherwise we would never be able to put up with all the bullshit.

Last weekend was a perfect example of how they can be both good and bad neighbors.

Saturday morning the phone rang. It was Mrs. Neighbor. She was calling because she wanted me to look up something on the internet. It's always the same thing, "Do you think the internet would have German sayings? Do you think they have anything the CBC? Can you find out who the person narrating this nature show I'm watching is?"

Today it was, "Where did human lice come from?" I said that human lice comes from other humans. "Yeah, I know that but it must have started somewhere. Do you think they might have that on the internet?"

Grrrrrr! She always assumes that I have nothing better to do than drop everything and look up useless stuff on the computer. I said I'd check later. At the time I was busy cleaning ink out of the dryer.

A little while later Mr. Neighbor showed up at the door with a big bag of potatoes. I told him to tell Mrs. Neighbor that all I could find on the internet was that lice co-evolved with humans.

In the afternoon Mrs. Neighbor walked into the house with a bag of caramel corn that she'd made. "Oh, by the way can you check driving.ca and see if they have anything about used cars? We want to know if Toyota's or Ford's are good and how much they cost."

Pffft! Kind of a broad search don't you think? Not enough information. Request denied!

Then after dinner they invited '#2' and '#3' over to build a snow bear. This is something they did a couple of years ago. It was getting later in the day around 7pm and the snow was really hard but we said OK.

Off the kids went to play in the snow. About 15 minutes later Mrs. Neighbor called and said that the snow wasn't very good but Mr. Neighbor was going to give it a try, so I could expect the kids to be coming back home pretty soon. The kids came home about 5 minutes later.

About half an hour after that Mrs. Neighbor was at the door. She said that Mr. Neighbor was passed out on the ground outside. All she knew was that he had a pulse and she couldn't pick him up. I put on my boots and headed over.

I guess after the kids went home he was determined to build a seal in the snow (did I mention that these people are around 50 years old?). The problem was that he was so loaded that at some point he passed out in the snow. I went out and picked him up and half carried him into his house (he was semi-conscious at this point). I plopped him down on a chair in his living room and went back home.

Mrs. Neighbor called to thank me for helping him out, and really what was I going to do? Leave him out in the snow to get hypothermia? Then Mrs. Neighbor called again a little while later to say thank you again. Then a little later on she called yet again just to say thanks (OK now it was starting to get annoying). Finally she called one more time at close to 11pm to tell inform me that Mr. Neighbor had sprained his knee pretty badly when he fell.

The next day Mrs. Neighbor called to find out how to treat a sprained knee. Would I look it up on the internet? I did and I gave her the information.

Then Mr. Neighbor called to say thanks for pulling his ass out of the snow. Hey, no big deal. Like I said what was I going to do leave him there.

Then Mrs. Neighbor called again to see if Jules could give him a ride to the clinic on Monday to get his knee looked at. "Sure no problem."

At dinner time Mrs. Neighbor called to see if we had dinner planned yet. "Yes", I said. She then told me that Mr. Neighbor wanted to buy us a pizza but would do it tomorrow instead. Sounds good to me!

Monday came and Mrs. Neighbor told Jules that Mr. Neighbor wasn't going to the clinic but she needed a ride to the pharmacy to pick up some crutches. Jules asked her why she couldn't just borrow the van and get them herself. She couldn't because she'd been drinking. "Oh, of course! What was I thinking it is 11:00am on a Monday morning after all." Off to the pharmacy they went, and not the pharmacy three blocks away. Nooo, it had to be the pharmacy on the other side of town.

Anyway we had our pizza that night and it was great! Unfortunately for dessert we had multiple phone calls about nothing from Mrs. Neighbor who was getting more and more drunk with each call.

Tuesday Mrs. Neighbor was looking for Jules to chauffeur Mr. Neighbor to the clinic on Wednesday. Didn't we already go through this? I believe it was at this point that Jules began to bitch about the inconvenience. They've had her running errands every day for some reason or another and wanting these errands done ASAP instead of when Jules was going out.

Mrs. Neighbor called me last night and told me to tell Jules that she wouldn't need the ride because they were going to borrow the other neighbors car.

Where will the story go from here? Who knows?

This is only a four day snapshot of our experiences with the good and the bad neighbors. Like I said it's always something with these guys.

1 comment:

The Complaints Depot said...

Story Con't......Mrs. Neighbour called at 12:30 to say she wasn't going to borrow someone else's car as she "couldn't drive" could I take Mr. Neighbour to the Clinic. She can watch #3, better yet send #3 over (as there's not enough booze for me at your place).

Lucky me just returned from the walk-in, then the x-ray shop. Mrs. Neighbour just called to say thank you, and brought over 20 bucks for gas. At least we get something out of all this.

I just hope I can make it to the gas station:)

P.S

Yesterday I had to drive her to the liquor store, and then that pharmacy after getting the kids, boy were they thrilled!!!

P.P.S
Still have to get Mr. Neighbours prescription to the pharmacy...ugh. Can I expect that call later today? Or possibly tomorrow?