Love thy neighbor

Last night, I was sitting in my kitchen by myself, when I heard a voice call, “R?”, but they didn’t say the letter, they said the whole name of my son, but the voice was kind of disembodied and a little bit creepy because it was from outside, and not just outside, but the north side, which, well, no one goes there because of the weird neighbor and the lack of sun (except for me when I’m working on what I call My Project, but the children call my Freaky Little Obsession, which is the weed project that I am ultra-devoted to.)

So I’m home alone, trying to figure out if there’s a friend of R’s lurking around in the yard, or a ghost, or something else, and it’s dark out, and sort of late for that kind of thing.  I’m not really the door locking kind, which I know you’re not supposed to post on the internet, but just to be clear, I’m not revealing whether I actually lock the doors or not, just that it’s not my natural way.  My natural way also doesn’t include working in a cubicle, but I do it because I must.  So at any rate, the point here is that I’m not easily creeped out, but it was just weird and unsettling.

About 10 minutes later, R. came home from his job moving the items from the conveyor belt into the bag, and I mentioned how I had heard his name called from the North Side, which also seemed creepy to him.  He had a distracting story about a huge tall heavy guy who came through the line and gave R. a hard time about how last week, R bagged the rotisserie chickens in such a fashion that they spilled and were eaten by the dog, and the huge guy put his hand on R.’s shoulder and said, “I was not a happy camper,” but the story came later.

All I can figure is that the neighbors got another frickin’ cat and named it after my son.  I know, they’re the type of people who actually call their cat.  (That’s not what you do with a cat, is it?  Don’t cats just come and go as they please?) 

Okay, a little rant here.  First of all, I find these neighbors annoying for many reasons, but to give it a tiny bit of substance without getting too petty, I’ll just say this:  They don’t seem to realize that when they toss things that they don’t want any more over the fence, well, the other side of the fence is my actual yard.  Is that a complicated concept?  I thought object permanence was a 9-month old milestone.   Finished with that can of Budweiser?  Toss it over the fence.  Plant a geranium, done with the pot?  Over the fence.   I’ll leave it at that, but you see my point.

So their last cat was huge and angry.  I know, some of you think I just don’t like cats, which isn’t the case at all; the title of the blog is merely a reference to the fact that I’m this close (moves thumb and index finger to almost touching position) to being that person who lives alone with all the cats.  In fact, I am her, except for the living alone part, and the cats.  At any rate, when I go out into my garden, this mean cat would be there hissing and lunging.  I am not exaggerating.  The UPS guy used to deliver their packages to my house, because he too, was afraid the cat.  I know.

Their babysitter, a pretty awesome teenager from across the street, used to be afraid of the cat too, and her dad teased her, “It’s just a cat, K.  I can’t believe you’re afraid of it!”  But then one day, she forgot her phone over there, and asked him go get it, and he drove (yes, lives across the street), and didn’t get out of the car once he saw the cat.  My point is that this particular animal was more like a semi-domesticated cougar.  But the owner used to put a stupid jacket on it, and trust me, the cougars do not like to be dressed in pink fluffy jackets, and it seemed to just piss it off more than ever.

Is it worse to have a bad cat named after your son, a ghost, or a creepy stalker in the yard?