My crappy new neighbors

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heyzeus
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My crappy new neighbors

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Preface: I get along with all of my neighbors. I always have. And I like knowing them, because it's good for the neighborhood to have people working together.

Anyway, last summer our neighbors moved to a bigger house. We're good friends with them; they have two kids almost exactly a year younger than my son and daughter, and are just kind, funny, smart people. The people who moved in are old retirees from Ohio. Which is fine! They seem pretty weird, which at first was also fine. The wife, lets call her Eva, is from Germany, probably pushing 80 years old, and keeps calling my son a girl even after I gently correct her. She edges their lawn with a pair of honest to god scissors. Ok. She likes to walk over and show me printed out email forward jokes, and wait for me to laugh, which is peak boomer but also? Ok. One time she came outside to complain that my children were playing too loudly in my yard and it was disturbing their dog. Ok. Her husband, Alph, doesn't talk or smile and seems to be an anthropomorphic cardboard box. One time a neighbor hadn't seen Eva in awhile and asked if she was ok, and he just said "she's alive" and kept walking.

This is all fine, as far as neighborly relations go, until the pandemic hits. My kids are 8 and 5. They need an outlet, man. We're all losing our [expletive], one day at a time. So we buy a ninja slackline off amazon. It looks like this:

Image

We don't have trees in our backyard, so we put it up in our front yard.

Eva comes by one day and asks if her grandson can use our slackline when he comes to visit them. I ask his age, and the kid is 3. The slackline is for ages 6 and up. I supervise our 5 year old on it, but she's a gymnast and is better on the thing than I am. This is also the start of the pandemic, and every playground in the country is closed so that kids aren't touching shared surfaces. I kindly explain to her that I'm sorry, but that the equipment isn't safe for three year olds, and that because of the pandemic we aren't having our kids share touchable surfaces. In my mind, my inner lawyer understands premises liability, and I know that if I allow other people to use this equipment and they get hurt, they're absolutely suing me, probably successfully. I also don't know this woman or her grandkid, I don't know whether she can safely supervise him, I don't know what precautions any of their family are taking, etc.

She seems to take it in stride, and that's the last I really think about it.

Until a few months later, when I come out from my back yard to see Eva yelling at my neighbor. About his kids playing too loudly. She immediately begins yelling at me about the slackline, about how I wouldn't let her grandson play on it. Screaming "what am I supposed to tell him when he comes over and sees it and can't play on it." I guess she never considered the words "I'm sorry honey, that's not ours, and you're not big enough, we can't use it." I did my best to remain calm, say de-escalating things like "I'm sorry you feel that way," and she kept yelling at both me and my neighbor. She concluded by saying she wouldn't want her grandson playing on it anyway. Which...ok? He wasn't going to be doing that anyway?

It's been a few weeks since then. I take my kids out to play in the front yard, and any time she comes out, I just smile at her, and she pretends she doesn't see me. But seriously, [expletive] this entitled ass Nazi [expletive], I miss my old neighbors.

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CardsofSTL
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Re: My crappy new neighbors

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Can I come play on the slackline?

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heyzeus
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Re: My crappy new neighbors

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I mean, yeah, obviously.

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CardsofSTL
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Re: My crappy new neighbors

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heyzeus wrote:
July 31 20, 10:21 am
I mean, yeah, obviously.
If your neighbor yells "O-H!" at me I will be obliged to respond with "I-O!"

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heyzeus
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Re: My crappy new neighbors

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Ohio people are so weird.

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CardsofSTL
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Re: My crappy new neighbors

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heyzeus wrote:
July 31 20, 10:39 am
Ohio people are so weird.
Tell me about it

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Leroy
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Re: My crappy new neighbors

Post by Leroy »

If that's your front yard, your neighbors must be like a mile and a half away anyway.

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heyzeus
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Re: My crappy new neighbors

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That's just a stock photo from the interwebz. My actual front yard is like 10x10 and full of dead grass and neighbor tears.

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Leroy
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Re: My crappy new neighbors

Post by Leroy »

Aha.

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Donnie Ebert
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Re: My crappy new neighbors

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heyzeus wrote:
July 31 20, 9:23 am
One time a neighbor hadn't seen Eva in awhile and asked if she was ok, and he just said "she's alive" and kept walking.
Sounds like something out of the 'Burbs. I'd watch for any late night digging and signs of an overpowered furnace in the basement.

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