December 19, 2005

The Most Ridiculous Neighbor Argument Ever

In case you didn't know, my neighbor is nuts. She's in her 80's, she's never happy and she insists on making "rules" for Melissa and I to follow, despite the fact that a) she doesn't own the building or property, b) the landlord has to told me -- on more than one occasion -- to pay her no mind and c) I've never given her any indication that I was interested in following any of them.

-She doesn't want me to lock the front door.
-She doesn't want me to "walk around in my boots at 5 o'clock in the morning anymore" despite the fact that I have never done so.
-When we first moved in, she SERIOUSLY implied -- via a note -- that we should "observe the Lord's Day" by "not doing laundry on Sunday."

(A couple of weeks ago, as I had just put laundry on to wash, she opened her door and yelled at us through our closed door, "You sure do a lot of laundry on Sundays!" before slamming her door, opening the front door and slamming it, too, on her way out to wait for a friend to pick her up at the end of our driveway. Melissa, infuriated at her behavior, walked out the back door and told her mom (whom she was talking to on her cell phone at the time) about it. When our neighbor noticed my spunky, little wife, she jumped a little and waved at her like nothing had happened.)

I have tons of notes from her. I've kept most of them. One day, I'll post them here.

The latest incident was so bizarre, that I thought I should share...

Some background:

Me and this crazy neighbor share a laundry room, smack dab in the middle of the duplex and between our two apartments. She is already convinced that I am always touching her stuff and that I rest my laundry basket on the corner of her dryer when I remove laundry from mine. Despite repeated assurances that I seldom even USE a laundry basket, she's convinced otherwise. While this constant harrassing paranoia was once annoying, it's now becoming a bit entertaining. She often wads up newspaper to stick between our two machines as some sort of demented line of demarcation and covers both her washer AND her dryer doors with old towels to ensure that I don't somewhow dirty up her stuff. She also places ALL of her laundry products in plastic Dollar General bags, double-knotting them so that I, again, don't mess with her stuff. She has also filled the laundry room and the adjacent foyer with air fresheners, and will often spray continuously -- for 30 seconds or more -- cheap Lysol in the foyer as some sort of "you stink" sign despite the fact that I'd bet anything that our side of the building is cleaned five times for every time she cleans hers once. We are not slobs. Neat freaks, even.

The incident:

On Friday, I noticed that my dryer wasn't working. I called a repairman and, on Saturday, he came to fix it. As was needed, he pulled the dryer out to investigate. It made a little noise and while he was crouched down behind it working, she opened her door, shouted something to the effect of "What's the matter?!?" and slammed her door. The repairman was a cool guy and was startled a bit until I assured him that a) she was crazy and that b) she didn't own the place. Eventually he left and I dried some clothes.

The next morning, upon going to get my clothes out of the dryer, I noticed the following written on a piece of paper towel wrapped around the aforementioned protective bundle of newsprint:

What's REALLY nutty about the whole thing is that the note was continued on her dryer IN INDELIBLE INK. I almost lost it. I've never seen such a thing:

I haven't been home all day. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Posted by colrus at 05:32 PM | TrackBack