To my knowledge, I’ve only had one neighbor that hated my guts.
And I hated her back.
My wife and I had just bought our first house, in Denver, a place where the cheapest houses aren’t very cheap. You’d think after paying all that $$ you’d at least get a decent neighbor.
On our first night, Elaine called my attention to the old, beat up, crappy van that was parked in full view of our living room window. Our neighbor parked it in front of our house because she didn’t want to look at it from her living room window.
She was older, super wealthy, apparently, and kept the old van for sentimental reasons. I never said anything about it – felt too weird to begin our relationship with a complaint.
That was the first of many annoyances.
At the time, I was attempting to start a church – something I would later learn I’m not very good at. I was stressed out most of the time and didn’t have much time for the people closest to me, much less a crazy neighbor.
Long story short, all the bad neighbor stuff she threw my way I returned in kind.
After a few years, things finally blew up.
My dog yipped a few times from our porch one evening and bad neighbor let me have it – she YELLED, standing in her yard, loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.
At this point, I wasn’t just fed up with her, Continue reading When “Love Thy Neighbor” Means Being Kind to Someone You’d Rather Duct Tape to an ICBM
