Love Thy Neighbor

Lord, help me!

I know you are suppose to love your neighbor, but I don't think I ever heard that you have to LIKE your neighbor. Living between two rental homes has been challenging over the several years we have owned our home.

On one side we have a rotating door of college students, i.e late night parties, trashed out yards, multiple vehicles, trees spray painted with fraternity logos, and cute little puppies that they grow tired of taking care of that end up bored out of their minds in the backyard. Recently, we had a couple move in...not college students..with young kids. I got excited thinking finally..FINALLY..we might have some nice, normal, quiet neighbors. And they are nice. But...they have two dogs...that stay in the backyard a lot of the time. And they stick their trash bags right outside the back door (instead of walking it to the alley). What do y'all think that means?



That's right. That is the lovely sight that greats me every time I step out my back door. And its been that way for at least a week.

And then on the other side of us is a newly rented house. You see, the guy who owns the house use to live there with his wife. Then they moved Granny in, and well..Granny and the wife did NOT get a long. So the guy and his wife moved out, leaving Granny there by herself. The problem with this is Granny doesn't need to be living by herself. According to the guy, who came over to give us his cell number (just in case), Granny does stuff like turn the stove on and then forgets about it. GGGrrreeeaaattt! And Granny is an animal collector, specifically cats. But I guess that's what happens when you dump cat food out on your front lawn. Every cat in the neighbor hood is going to start hanging around. And don't even get me started on the two hound dogs that are caged in the back yard. I guess they have plenty of room back there, but very little human interaction. I'm not sure why they even keep those dogs. ANYWAY, they moved Granny out months and months ago..but still the dogs remained. The cats, getting hip to the fact that there would be no more kitty buffets in the front yard, slinked off to greener pastures. The house was empty and quiet, besides the two baying hound dogs in the back yard until....WHAM! Suddenly there are two limos parked up in front of that house. Y'all have to understand, our street is just not that wide and our houses are just not that big. Two limos takes up a whole lot of space. Turns out they are the new renters, running their limo business from their new homes. GGGrrreeaaatt! And the dogs? Still in the backyard..weird.

I was JUST started to get over the limo thing when someone knocked on our door last night. It was the lady from the limo house next door. And this was her story. They didn't pay their electric bill, so the power was turned off. She went to pay the bill, but in the meantime her stupid husband went and tampered with the meter box to turn the power back on. When the electric company went out to turn the power back on they found the tapering and turned the power BACK off and put a lock on the box. And no one would be back out to 'straighten it out' until Monday. So....since that mean ol' electric company screwed THEM over could they possibly 'borrow' some of our electricity and use one of our outside plugs. My husband, the saint, told them yes. He was a little mad at himself afterwards because..really..who asks their neighbors for electricity? It's just not normal neighborly behavior. She kept telling him just to let her know when we got our electric bill and they would give us some money. We might be nice, but we aren't stupid. This evening we will be unplugging their cord and letting them know that this will not be happening in the future...ever.

Lord, please...send me some nice normal neighbors who only want to borrow sugar and actually care about their pets and their yards.