Monday, June 25, 2018

June 25. Neighbors III

I have a friend, Maggie, who has a far bigger yard than I do, and she offered to bring her weedeater and leaf blower over to help get my yard trimmed up for spring (which of course doesn't exist in St. Louis, but it was good thinking anyway). She brought them over and we cleaned up the yard of all its fallen sticks and stray rocks and whatnot. I planted a few hostas and mowed the grass. She used the weedeater on the edges and the fence line and then, between my house and the house next door, not the Neighbors, but just the neighbors, she blew out all the willow oak leaves that had collected over the winter.

Blew them into the street.

See, I live in a city with street sweepers. When I lived in the 'hood, the street sweeper came once a month and cleaned everything up. I just figured it was the same thing here, same city, same streets, better neighborhood, even.

Two days later the Neighbor was in the street with a broom and when the same friend came over to pick me up to go get a drink...she lectured her.

"THIS is how I like my street!" she said.

Maggie defended us, saying that in my old neighborhood....

"NOPE! That's not the way it is here! The city doesn't pick up after us. We have to do it ourselves. The city is out of money. We get shortchanged!"

Her husband chimed in that he should get a job with the city and make $18 an hour and so on. She nattered on about neighbors cleaning up after themselves and when I was told of this bizarre situation, I called bullshit.

Because we do have street sweepers.

And what we have done is perfectly acceptable.

And I refuse to change just because she doesn't want a few leaves in the damned street. Maybe if she and her husband had something better to do than smoke on the porch it wouldn't bother her so much.

And in one fell swoop, she made me feel like a hoosier, a bad neighbor, and a bumpkin all in one. Screw that. 

6 comments:

  1. I'm starting to worry I'll hear about you one day on an episode of Fear Thy Neighbour.

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  2. Oh dear. I think of all these things for you to do in response (take photos, show evidence of street sweepers etc), and then realise that it is probably futile. And that I probably wouldn't do them myself. Sigh.

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    Replies
    1. Yes I fear she's the intractable kind of crazy. I've decided to smile and wave.

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  3. Just yell "Have a Nice Day!" whenever she looks your way and start dropping lung cancer awareness pamphlets in her mail box. You'll be besties in no time! (Seriously, I'm a little worried about this neighborhood you've dropped into.)

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