Neighbor Nightmares

This post is in response to Mama Kat’s writer’ workshop prompt:  A Memorable Neighbor.  One I’d choose to forget if it weren’t so,…well….memorable.

Hubs and I were so excited about the tiny yellow bungalow on the corner.  The 1910 remodel with the white picket fence glowed with the promise of a great start to a new marriage.  It was our first house together, and yes, it actually had a cliche white picket fence. 

We (or I rather) spent hours selecting the perfect wool, Persian, vegetable dyed rug with which to base the home’s entire color scheme around.  Its colors of red, green, and gold were accents to every one of the rooms the previous owner had painstakingly restored to its original charming state.   I even found a stunning pair of stained glass window frames to compliment the kitchen’s nostalgic gas oven and antique knobs and faucets.

Our new home was located in a historical enclave of downtown Houston known as The Heights, and most of it’s inhabitants were professionals or students with barely enough time to get the mail much less have tea with the newly weds that just moved in next door.  So needless to say, we knew no one around us. 

***Important Lesson in Home Buying:  Always meet the neighbors before signing at the closing.  And ask each neighbor about the others.  Very important information could spew angrily from a mouth that could have warned you before you signed 30 years away.  Just FYI.

It had been less than a month.  Hubs was off to work. I was on night shifts in the ER so we barely saw one another some days.  Around noon I sprang from my vamp sleep and slumped to the kitchen for coffee.  We had the cutest little backdoor with a solid picture window that gave a clear view into the backyard of the neighbor’s house that faced the side street.  I wondered what to do with this window feeling it could be like being in a fishbowl at night, but hesitated not to tamper with its authenticity.  And then I saw it…..

Our neighbor.  Standing on his back porch.  Surrounded by the scraps, tools, and overgrown weeds I had assumed was temporary waste of another antique home refurbishment.  He was in nothing but his dingy white BVDs.  Washing his dishes in the water hose.  My eyes burned at the corners as if they were ripping trying to widen further.  I frantically darted them to the toilet sitting on the deck I assumed he was readying to install.  And it crossed my mind that he might do all his plumbing jobs outback! 

A week later I had bought all the supplies and learned to paint windows to look like stained glass.  We no longer had a paneless picture window in our backdoor.  And not for fear of what was looking in…but what we might see looking out!