I want to move.
Does anyone want to buy a slightly older home in a semi-remodeled state? But I have to warn you, I live in a tweeting neighborhood.
Yep. You read that right. Everything in my neighborhood tweets.
First of all, a little background. We are somewhat an anomaly in our neighborhood, as everyone in our neighborhood falls into two categories: retirees or divorced parents (mostly moms) with older children or teenagers. And then there’s us. I don’t think that our neighbors know how to deal with us, as they can’t talk about the high prices of membership in AARP and they can’t discuss how all men are bastards, so they pretty much leave us alone.
However, I cannot escape their chirping.
I’m not just talking about the birds, although we’ve got a powerful lot of those things too. And not nice tweeting birds. There’s one bird who lives in the tree above our bedroom. Its mating call is the sound of a fax machine trying to establish a link. Beeeeeeeeeep Crhstchhhhhhhhh. I’m afraid to leave our business line off the hook’ he might send a fax.
No, it’s not just the birds. It’s everything. Everything tweets.
First of all, the neighbor’s kid thinks he’s some skateboarding wizard. His skateboard wheel has a squeaky wheel. Thus we have squeaking from the east. I offered Esteban twenty bucks to take a can of WD-40 over there, but he doesn’t want to piss off his mom, who is very nice and has a boyfriend who often carries around a large pipe wrench.
This same neighbor has a parrot. The parrot offers all sorts of strange chirps and trills, but he has also learned how to imitate the sound of their portable phone, which, incidentally happens to be the same make and model of OUR portable phone. Thus, we are constantly chasing after phantom avian phone calls.
Next, we have the developmentally disabled grown child of a retired couple up the street. Think Warren in ‘There’s Something About Mary’. He rides around on his women’s three-speed bike with enormous saddle seat and sticker-covered safety helmet. And they gave him a bell. Which he rings. Every. Five. Feet.
I try to be politically correct. I feel for the problems of retarded citizens. Hell, I grew up around several mentally-handicapped people in my grandmother’s home, where I spent large amounts of time. Betty is a very beloved member of our family and she has the mental capacity of a six year old. Just take away his bell. That’s all I’m asking. Have a heart, people. We don’t need the ‘Warren Warning System’ employed.
Finally, our neighbors across the street. Fine people. Wonderful people. They used to blow the snow out of our driveway before we had a snow blower. Even now on winter mornings, they’ll clean out the snow from the snowplough so we can get our cars out of the driveway. They are the other demographic anomaly in our neighborhood. They are former hippies with four kids and a bunch of cats and dogs. They also keep their Christmas lights up all year round. Lit. It’s Christmas 365 days a year in our neighborhood. To their credit, they do put up MORE lights during Christmas than most times of the year. And they also light different sets of lights for different holidays. They have the red and white ones for Valentines Day, the red and orange ones for Halloween, inexplicably, the blue and yellow ones for Mother’s Day.
That’s not the problem. Honestly, the snob in me has gotten over the tackiness of having Christmas lights lit all year round. However, they also own a fleet of $400 vehicles that they regularly rotate in their driveway.
And one of the cars has developed a tweet.
Each night, the dad goes out and revs the car’s engine, causing the tweet to vary in pitch. up and down, up and down. It’s driving me insane.
So if anyone would be interested in a lovely four bedroom bungalow with a dining room and attached two-car garage, let me know. It’s cheap. Really cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
