The People Next Door

I don't dislike my neighbors, but they get on my nerves. Think of my neighbors as a messed up grocery cart with a bum front tire that makes it less nimble than a Mercury Grand Marquis trying to make a u-turn. For one, it seems like they are always outside. I'm all about the outdoors, soaking in some rays, watering grass, whatever, but there's got to be a point where it is just excessive. I probably go out to my car a dozen times in a day and 80% of the time I see the lady next door. It wouldn't be such an issue if our garages didn't face each other, but they do, and I always get caught up in conversation with this lady. And for some reason my legs, almost by instinct, walk towards her driveway which ultimately prolongs a conversation by a few minutes. The closer I get to the neighbors, the longer the conversation becomes. Since we don't talk of anything important I feel myself actually losing minutes off my life. I think our most profound conversation was about what type of container she should use to send over the cookies she baked my family.

Secondly, the lady next door is tall, like 6' and some change tall. Albeit, she is quite possibly the nicest lady in the world and makes some of the best pies I have ever eaten, but I don't like the fact she is taller than me. I try to suppress this anger though. Thirdly, they set up a badminton net in their backyard for the entire summer. I love badminton. Nothing revs my engine like a shuttle cock whizzing from one side of the net to the other except when it's played exorbitant amounts. The neighbors' kids play more badminton than any normal human should play, even people of oriental descent. And what is really weird is that they suck. While walking through the backyard, I noticed the neighbors partaking in a game of badminton, go figure. Considering I woke up to their yells and screams, I gathered they had been badmintoning for well over three hours. I stopped to gander at their skills, however, as it turned out they left their skills in the house somewhere. Most likely in a part of the house they don't frequent very often like the basement closet or something. Anyways, so they had probably been playing for a few hours by the time I started watching and while attempting to serve the shuttle cock, the kid whiffed. Not once or twice, but five times in a row. WTF! If you're going to wake me up in the morning because you can't control your screams during a badminton match, you sure as hell better be good so when I get up to watch you're not whiffing like the most uncoordinated person in the metro Detroit area.

Honestly, my neighbors aren't really that bad, but since I'm around the house all day, all night, day after day, I begin noticing things. Like how my cat uses the litter box at exactly the same time every morning or how my little brother can successfully go through an entire day without washing his hands. It's observations like these that are rarely seen unless I take time to breath, relax, and creep around the neighbors yard.