The Pink Shoe Diaries

I am kind of wary of neighbors, in general.

I'm going to go all psychological on you and say it relates to my childhood. Growing up, we lived next door to a family. Let's call them the Burkes. I remember them being seemingly nice people up until I was in the 4th grade. There was some kind of dispute over some trees growing in between our driveway and the Burke's driveway. The Burke's wanted to cut them down and my parents did not since they were kind of a nice divider in between the properties and they were beautiful trees. My family had already planned a trip down the Cape for a few weeks so my parents and the Burkes decided that when they returned, they would have a property assessor come and draw in the actual property line.

So we were all a bit surprised when we returned from the Cape a few weeks later and the trees were gone. I guess they didn't want to wait. And when the property assessor came he deduced that the (now long gone) trees WERE in fact on my parent's side by a few feet.

Isn't that nice?

My parents didn't feel they had much recourse other than to dislike the Burkes, and to call them the Bunyans behind their backs. (Get it? Like Paul Bunyan?)

And the Bunyan's idiocy continued. Once when my parents were in Europe my brother had a party and the police ended up coming. It was no big thing since the police in my town tended to have not much else to do than break up parties on weekend nights. I told my brother that I wouldn't mention it to my mom, but the Burke/Bunyans decided to cut out the announcement from the police blotter in the local newspaper, highlight the address, and save it for 2 weeks so they could put it in my parents' mailbox when they returned.

And then there was the time they tried to sue my parents' for having the paint stripped off their house because they thought it was lead paint and what if their kids picked up paint chips and put it in their mouths. Did I mention their kids at the time were 12 and 14? If your 12 year old picks up paint off the ground and eats them, then you got bigger problems than lead paint.

So as I see it, I am wary of my neighbors. To me they are people that have the potential to cause trouble for me, and not much else. I know this probably reinforces ideas people have about snotty New Englanders but it's not snottiness at all, it is desire for non-drama. If I don't get into anything with them then they can't get anything with me.

And we all know what kind of interaction we have had with neighbors at our new place thus far.

So imagine our surprise when, at 5PM yesterday there was a knock on the back door. I paused from making my apple-onion chutney and opened the door. There was an impossibly tall young man saying to me "Well hey there. I am your new neighor Shawn! I just moved in across the hall and I wanted to introduce myself!".

Adam appeared next to me and we were both like "???". I hastily thrust out my hand and introduced myself as Adam did the same. We learned that he was from the midwest (of course! who is this friendly around here?), plays guitar, had just moved in and this was his first time in the Boston area.

In all my years of living in apartments and having people move in and out, no one has ever done this simple thing of coming to the door and introducing themselves.

It was kind of shocking, in the nicest way.

When he left we were kind of like "Is it weird that we are shocked!?". Maybe it is. But I believe we covered our shock quite nicely and were welcoming and friendly.

And then, in case poor Shawn got the impression that we were normal, we had the following exchange in the open hallway as Adam left for hockey practice

Me: When you come back, you better put your dirty hockey stuff in the spare room and NOT in the living room.
Adam: How about I put it up your @&*?

Nice, right?

So I think this Shawn is in for it with us. I have never had a neighbor-friend before and we are actually quite into the idea. I plan on bringing him some of the apple cake I made last night, and Adam is asking him over for a beer later in the week.

Let's just hope he doesn't turn out to be Bunyan.

Or that WE don't turn out to be Bunyans!