Let me just say that I’ve spent all of 14 minutes total with these people since we moved in and they seem like really nice people, especially the husband. They brought over homemade frosted cookies when we moved in and are nothing but nice. But it’s that weird nice where they feel they have to be nice or else the wrath of the Lord will come down upon them.We’ve decided they are Mormon, based solely on the fact that my mom saw what she says was “a years worth of food” in their garage. They also have a gaggle of kids (5) all with biblical names. So, they’re either Mormon or Catholic. Anyway, I have issues:

1. I swear he mows their lawn every day, sometimes more than once a day. I don’t know why it bothers me, but it does. Maybe because we mow our lawn once a month. Oh, and he has a riding mower, which both my husband and I covet. Lately I have a theory that he mows so often, because it’s nice out, the riding mower is fun to drive and it’s something to keep him busy so he doesn’t get his wife pregnant again.

2. Their oldest child is 10 years old, yet on the weekends they have 17 year old boys hooting and hollering and jumping on their trampoline until 10 at night. Who knows who they are.

3. The wife seems docile and obedient so I was so surprised by what transpired this morning. I was getting the kids into the car and left the garage door open. Atticus somehow shimmied through the cat door that leads to the garage and got out. He galloped past me and took off up the street for the neighbors. (Note: There is a fair bit of land between our houses and to actually get to their front door you have to walk up the street and go down a driveway) I get in the car to drive after him and sure enough he had galloped up to them while they were in the front yard. I drive up and open my door to her screaming at me. SCREAMING. “WHAT THE HELL? IS THAT YOUR DOG!?!?! HE SCARED MY KIDS!!!” I can’t remember the last time someone SCREAMED at me. Later on, I had the feeling I got when I was like 9 and someone yelled at me. I wanted to cry and felt shame and vulnerable. I felt that way for a nanosecond then I snapped out of it and thought “Fuck her and her horrible haircut.” Meanwhile, Atticus is a big, dumb happy lab. Not Cujo. I understand that some people are scared of dogs and he could be scary to those not in the know, especially when he bounds out of nowhere. I just would have handled it differently. I also don’t feel the need to breed for the sport of it, but that’s just me.

 4. The last and final thing that irritates me is when their posse of children tromp around the periphery of our yard they come to the fence and stare at Hadley. She stands on the other side of the fence and stares back. I went to the fence one day and bent down next to her. “Can you say hi to the kids, sweetie?”

“I did, Mama, they don’t say hi back.” She was right. I said “HI” and they were mute. From then on I would smile at them but didn’t try to engage them in conversation. They just continue to stand at the fence and watch us like we were gorillas in the zoo. And they leave their fruit snack wrappers on the ground. Irk. Irk. Irk.