"Your next-door neighbor is not a man; he is an environment." - Gilbert K. Chesterton

I think I’ve mentioned before that my next door neighbors are a little...ahem...“white-trash”. That said, they are very, very sweet people, and would probably do anything to help me out in a pinch (within reason, of course). Whenever I go out of town, they watch my house, park cars in my driveway (to make it look like I’m home), etc. They have all of my emergency contact information, and I am confident that it will be my next door neighbors (not my parents, siblings or boyfriend) who will first sound the alarm should I ever go missing or something of that nature.

Because they are such sweet people – and so protective of me and my belongings – I don’t get irritated when, say, the wind blows the trash from their yard into mine. Or when I discover “Mr. Toolson” wandering around my backyard at 10 PM, “just checking on the progress of the landscapin’ project”. I honestly believe that they have my safety and wellbeing at heart. True, they are a bizarre bunch, but harmless. Completely harmless.

Anyway, “The Toolsons” never cease to fascinate me. I really should start a BLOG to track nothing else but their odd behavior. Seriously. They crack me up, and give me loads of stories to tell. However, seeing as though I hardly have enough time to update this BLOG, I’ll stick with giving everyone periodic updates on what's going on next door.

Speaking of which, I hope you enjoy the following “Toolson Tidbits”:

Incident #1:

As I mentioned in THIS POST the daughter-in-law of Mr. and Mrs. Toolson is pregnant with her second child. However, despite the fact that she was already showing in early July, “Jane Doe” still hadn’t been to the doctor by Labor Day. When I asked her about this, she shrugged her shoulders and told me that it wasn’t a big deal. After all, she was only in her first trimester.


“First trimester,” I exclaimed! “But you’re already so big! Are you sure you’re not further along?”

“Well, that’s what the doctor thinks,” Jane Doe explained.

“I thought you said you hadn’t been to the doctor, yet.”

“I haven’t, but I called one on the phone. He thought I sounded like I was only in my second or third month.”

“Oh.” (I wanted to say something super sarcastic here, but bit my tongue. She’s sweet, but not-the-brightest-crayon-in-the-box, if you know what I mean. It would only confuse her if I asked what the difference in sound was in a woman three months pregnant versus six.)

“He thinks my due date will be in late February or something, which kind of sucks. I was hoping that this one would be born before the New Year, so I could get a tax benefit for having two kids.”

“Bummer. Did you tell the doctor that you haven’t had your period since last February or March?”

“Yeah, but he still thinks I’m only a month or two along.”

“Maybe you should get a second opinion? I don’t think you’re supposed to start showing until second trimester, and you are definitely showing.”

“Well, he’s the doctor. I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about.”

“Uhmmmm…okay.”


As it turns out, I only had to wait about a week for “Jane Doe” to finally go to the doctor. Apparently, it didn’t take long for him to discover that she wasn’t in her first trimester at all (duh!). Yeah, she was in her sixth month (which, incase you are keeping track, is the last month of the SECOND trimester). So, “Jane Doe” will be welcoming baby #2 (a girl) into the world sometime in mid-December. Looks like she’ll be getting that tax write-off after all…


Incident #2:

A couple of days after I returned from Africa, I ran into “Mr. Toolson”. This is the conversation that transpired:


“Oh, good! I was hoping to run into you today,” exclaimed “Mr. Toolson” as he ran towards me.

“Hi! Is everything okay,” I inquired?

“Oh, sure. I just wanted to get something off my chest.”

“Okay…”

“I owe you money from 8 PM last Thursday until 4:30 PM last Friday.”

“For what?”

“Well, I didn’t pay our electric bill again last month and they turned the power off. So, I called with my bank card number, but they couldn’t get anyone out to turn the lights back on until the next afternoon. So, I plugged into your tree right there and ran extension cords across the driveway so we could have electricity. I would have asked first, but you were in Africa.”

“Oh…”

“You’re not mad, are you?”

“Oh, no. Not at all. I’m glad I could help. I’m just trying to get a mental-picture, that’s all. You must have one long extension cord!”

“Actually, no. I just hooked about 15 of them together. I even ran one line up the stairs, so we could watch TV in the bedroom.”

“Oh.”


Incident #3:

I returned home one night to find the Toolsons cooking on the grill underneath their carport. At one point, “Jane Doe” walked calmly outside with Jet (her 18 month old son). She waited patiently while Mr. Toolson and I finished our conversation before very matter-of-factly announcing that the stove in the kitchen was on fire.

It was at that moment that I first noticed the flames on the other side of the kitchen window.

Later, after the fire was put out, Mr. Toolson asked “Jane Doe” why she waited so long to tell him about the blaze. Her answer: “Well, the stove catches on fire all the time over here, so it didn’t seem like something important enough to interrupt the conversation over.”


Incident #4:

Last Monday I returned home to discover that someone had run over my front yard and walkway with their car. Two of my solar lights were shattered, a couple of my landscaping bricks were cracked into several pieces, a strange “dent” was visible in the bark of my pecan tree and one of my sprinklers heads was laying in the middle of the driveway. Thank goodness I had turned the sprinkler main off the day before (because of an unrelated sprinkler issue in the backyard the previous afternoon). Otherwise, the broken sprinkler head would have sprouted some sort of geyser.

Anyway, while I was cleaning up the mess, I was approached by my across-the-street neighbor, “Mark”. Everyone in the neighborhood knows “Mark”, and if you are patient enough “Mark” will tell you everything he knows about the people in the neighborhood. He has lived on the street with his parents for his entire life, and loves to make new friends. If someone new moves in, “Mark” will most likely be the first person on the block that they meet. He’s like the unofficial neighborhood “Welcome Wagon”.

Now, “Mark” is in his mid-fifties, but has the mentality of someone around the age of eight or nine. I’m not saying this to be mean, but because “Mark” is mentally retarded. So, when I heard “Mark” call out my name (he thinks my name is “Let’s Make a Deal, Gamble”) and saw him walk (he normally runs) across the street with his head down (it’s normally up with a BIG smile plastered from ear to ear) – I knew something was up.


“What’s up, Mark?”

“I dunno. Not much. Your light’s broke and you can’t fix it?”

“Yeah, it’s broken. Not a big deal, though. They weren’t expensive. Do you know what happened?”

[Mark looks at me and hesitates…] “No.”

“It’s just so weird. It looks like a car drove up and hit my lights and tree.”

“Oh. Yeah, it does look like that. I bet that’s what happened. Car hit the tree.”

“Well, I hope everyone is okay.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” [Mark hesitates again…] “I got a secret. Promise not to tell?”

“Okay…”

“Well, you know [Jane Doe’s] mother?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, she’d had one-too-many-beers or something. That’s what my dad always says when my brother has too much to drink – one-too-many beers. It looked like she forgot which driveway was which. She drove right up and hit your tree. There is a dent in her car, too. She was real mad. She screamed real loud. I can’t believe she didn’t tell you. I don’t think she even told [Mr. Toolson]. She smelled bad. Don’t tell that I told, though. I don’t want to be a no tattletale or nothing. It’s just that she broke your lights and didn’t tell you or say ‘sorry’. That’s not right. It was just an accident. Nobody means for an accident to happen. You just say ‘sorry’ and it will be okay. She should have said ‘sorry’. It’s good to be honest.”

“Thanks for telling me, Mark.”

“Okay. I’m sorry about your lights. They were pretty at night. Don’t tell nobody I told.”

“Alright. I won’t.”

“Maybe she’ll tell you later? I hope so. Just don’t tell her I told you first. It was just an accident. She didn’t mean it.”

“It’s our little secret, Mark.”


Anyway, I’ve never heard about “the incident” from the Toolsons, so I’m guessing “Jane Doe’s” mother never told them about it, either. Plus, the solar lights were cheap, so it wasn’t a big loss. The most expensive thing was the sprinkler repair, but the sprinkler guy was so amused by the tale of the drunk-driveway-sprinkler-hit-and-run, he just threw that in for free.

I guess I now know why Benjamin Franklin once said:

“Love thy neighbor, but don't pull down your hedge.”