People Are Weird

My attached neighbours are crazy (although, I'm starting to think I'm the crazy one, since I find so many people strange, maybe it's not THEM, but ME). We moved here two years ago. My first impression of my neighbour was that she was a grumpy, old bitch because I cheerily waved hello to her on my first day in the 'hood and after giving me a dirty look, she completely ignored me. I thought, "Huh, glad I moved out of the ghetto for this." Anyway, she soon improved and has been mostly nice to me and my husband. She has a 20 year-old daughter who is tall, fit and pretty (although only with makeup and she definitely has cankles), she also had a boob job last summer, so except for her ankles, she's a real fox. I jokingly warned Brad not to get too friendly, or better yet, pretend he is blind when she's around. I told the mother that her daughter was so pretty and I'd told my husband to stay away from her, ha ha ha. We've had some uncomfortable incidents, but mostly it's been live and let live.

 For instance, last summer, an hour before we had to leave for my mum's birthday dinner, this neighbour comes over and asks Brad to help her with her satelite. I should have told her he was in the shower, but he wasn't I couldn't lie that fast and anyway, he ends up helping her. I'm waiting inside, getting madder and madder because it's my MUM's birthday and we had to get going. It's brutally hot, so Brad's going to have to shower before we go and time's ticking away here. Finally, I go over to see how things are going and Brad's like, could you stand on the front porch and ask her if it's clear yet, because I'm around the side of the house and I can't hear her. So I tell her that I'm going to relay to Brad and she's like, "Oh, I just took the card out and restarted the system, it's going to take a minute." Oh my God, I could barely contain my anger, but I took a deep breath and said, "Um, ok, well, it's my mum's birthday tonight and we sort have dinner plans and we really have to go and Brad still needs to shower, so um, would it be alright if we do this tomorrow? Or even just, later? I thought it was only going to be a few minutes and it's been 30 and we really have to get going." And she comes stomping out of her house, calls around the side of the house, "Brad, your wife wants you to go, I will just get my friend to do it next week. I can wait for my friend to do it. Your WIFE wants to leave" Like, I'm this horrible bitch for having a life. I mean, she just stopped by on a Friday night and expected us to be twiddling our thumbs. She's just a complete piece of work, this woman. And of course it's "Brad" to him and 'Your wife" to me. Bitch.

So, a few weeks ago, she and her next door neighbours decide to build a fence. Brad was going to help, but he's been working at his shed and he was busy with that and they had about seven people working on their fence, so they really didn't need us. And honestly, when we did our fence last year, she didn't help us or give us money, so why would we help when it's not even our fence? And besides the fact we also have a four-month-old infant to care for. Anyway, after the fence is built, my neighbour and her daughter stopped talking to both Brad and I. We couldn't figure it out, except that we didn't help. We didn't really even care to be honest, she's such a bitch, it was a relief not talking to her. Then I find out from another neighbour that they are definitely mad about us not helping. Oh well, fuck 'em. Life is way too short to worry about keeping people like that happy.

Oh, but wait! That's NOT why they don't like us. The REAL reason? Because, two years ago, when we first moved and I made that joke about Brad staying away from her daughter? She took that as me telling her that her daughter is a slut. Why on earth would I say that to a virtual stranger? Hi, please to meet you, I noticed your daughter is a slut. The neighbour that told me this assured her that I only meant that her daughter was pretty.

Mum says it should be a lesson to me not to joke around with people I don't know very well. But I think it's more of a lesson that if I joke around with someone and they completely misunderstand and take offense, then they are not the type of person I want as a friend. If I can't be ME than why bother?