i possibly have 80trillion anecdotes for Bad Neighbor Day, and yes, they're all about other people being bad neighbors, because i'm always the best neighbor i can be. i wish there was a day about bad landlords or bad roommates, because i have a lot of those stories, too.

i move around a lot, so i've had a lot of neighbors, most of them bad in differing degrees of badness. we've had to call the police on neighbors because they were beating their kids so loud that we couldn't sleep, i've come home late at night and had a neighbor sleeping in my bed because she 'heard my dogs barking and wanted to keep them company', neighbors who wouldn't talk to me because i'm white, neighbors who crushed my fence and then yelled when my dogs went to poop in their yard, neighbors who would yell at me for things i didn't do (while their nightgowns were open so that i could see their boobs), neighbors who shot a cop on my steps, neighbors who stomped another neighbor to death, neighbors who didn't talk to me until they were stuck on their roof and needed my help to put their ladder back up (that's when i inadvertently knocked the power line off that bad neighbor's house and didn't say anything about it), neighbors who taunted a snapping turtle until it bit the end of their hose off, neighbors who would kill deer on my land at night, cut the heads off and leave the carcasses for the dogs to eat, neighbors who sported swastikas on their motorcycle helmets, neighbors who would yell at me at midnight for 'walking down the hall too loud' (in running shoes), neighbors who asked me if i 'messed around' and then yelled at 'faggots', neighbors who stole my credit card numbers and ran up a mess of charges, neighbors who would laugh and point while speaking in chinese, neighbors who would drop shit down into my house for fun and neighbors who would try to chase me down with buckets of water when i walked to school.

to all my bad ex-neighbors out there: i don't miss you at all. you are all bitter people who are going to get your comeuppance, just like bad neighbors always do.

5. our comfort comes first.

for a year or so, we were living on the seventh floor of an old cement building in minneapolis. it used to be a hotel, and they hadn't rewired, so the cost of electricity was covered by building management. one day, it was in the upper nineties and we were sweltering. the cat couldn't move from the spot where she had flopped on her side on the floor. even though we were broke, we took our credit card to circuit city and bought the biggest air conditioner we could find. we brought it home, set it up, cranked it up to 10, and turned it on. it promptly blew out all the power on that side of the building.

4. we're spiteful.

our next door neighbor in our first ghetto apartment used to have loud sex with his screechy girlfriend right on the other side of the wall from our bed. they blasted barry white all night long. we called the cops on him several times. when the building burnt down, his bed fell through the floor into the basement. we laughed. hard.

3. we think that if you don't like it, you can deal with it yourself.

whenever bobbi (our current next-door neighbor) sees us out in the yard, she comes over and informs us (in the most circular and repetitive way possible) about her plans for our yard. like, taking out some of our trees that she thinks might be creeping her way. and trimming our bushes (the ones we neglect because we plan on removing them). she says she's going to have her tree-trimming guys do some of this work. i smile blankly and agree that, yes, she's completely welcome to pay for our yard work.

2. we're irritated by your neighborliness.

when we see dawn coming, we run and hide. we don't want to talk about her garden or how great the junk she bought at our garage sale looks in her house. when connie says, 'you girls are never home!', we get creeped out knowing she's paying that much attention. we're not antisocial, we just don't like you very much.

1. loud sex. no. loud, raucous, nasty sex.

and no one's called the cops yet. see #4.

316 Oak Grove St.
Crack Makers: Found out that the apartment next to ours was being used exclusively for the production of crack. Landlady didn't call the cops, just told them to get out. I would have preferred it if she had called the cops, you know, to send them to jail and all. I mean, it's crack.

7621 Knox Ave S
Darcy: Her kid was sitting in the hallway one afternoon right after we moved in. She came home and rushed down the hall and proceeded to beat the everloving shit out of that kid and I called the cops. Later she came over to invite me to meet her son and prove to me that she was not an abusive woman at all. Her apartment was decked out in all the black lacquer and brass that the local rent-to-own place could offer. She seemed unbalanced. Kid seemed nice enough, if a little shaken. I kept my eyes open for anything weird (besides the grey velour couch with brass accents). A few weeks later there was a pounding on my door at 6:30 in the morning. It was Darcy. Hair disheveled and dressed in a flowing number I like to call "worn out zipper robe from K-mart circa 1987". In her hands were two packs of cigarettes, Camel Lights and Marlboro Red Box. She wandered in, vaguely disoriented. She asked if I could watch her apartment while she ran some errands, I told her I had to work. She saw my extensive collection of cheap fruity liquors in plastic jugs (oh to be 25 and believe that peach schnapps is the classiest of drink enhancers), "Oh, you drink...". I glanced at the cigarettes in her hand and said confirmed that I did indeed drink. She kept calling to Jen, asking her to come out. "I'm not dressed yet," she'd cunningly reply, leaving me alone with this wrongly medicated suburban harpie.
The Indigo Girls Fan: For two or three weeks in a row this guy would wander out onto his deck, greet the weekend sun and crank "Rites of Passage" for the whole complex to hear. Didn't last long.
The lowlife motherfuckers who broke into our apartment and stole our shit: That about sums it up. But it does have to be said that the night before I had videotaped a show about the evolution of defense mechanisms in the creatures of the coral reef, and I had been planning on watching while I ate dinner that night. They stole the VCR with my video in it. I missed other things more, but that was the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw the VCR missing.

3132 Grand Ave S
The guy who yelled at his family: Guy next door who was always getting in fights with his wife and yelling at his kids. Once, his kids came into my yard and took some of my gardening supplies. I considered complaining to the parents, but decided he would either freak on me or the kids.
The guy who got stoned with the teenaged kids in his car: Yeah, I called the cops on that because I figure that if you are going to get high with a minor in a semi-public place you need to be taught a lesson about the translucent qualities of your automobile's glass.
The guy who hated white people: He would sit on the front stoop of his building at 3am on the first weekend of every month over the summer after his woman kicked him out for being drunk. From there he would yell about her hard heart and how much he hated white people for ruining the neighborhood and driving up property values. Considering my next entry, I don't think that was an issue.
More Crackheads: Someone dropped the pipe or something and the whole building burned down. The guy who hated white people got out alive, but he had to move. Damn.

Present
Bobbi: She once buried a dead rabbit in my yard. Her reasoning was that she had just had some landscaping done and didn't want to disturb it. From what I can see there was still about 2/3 of the yard unscaped and any of that 2/3 could probably have had a hole dug in it. She also owns the cutest, but dumbest cat around. Bean was never a bright cat, which might have something to do with why it got hit by the car. Getting hit by the car seems to have exacerbated the whole 'dumb' issue. That cat runs in front of my car all the time. It's only that I know to watch for her that I don't hit her. My friends who come to visit don't know about her and I think it's unfair that this not so bright animal is allowed to roam the neighborhood potentially risking an ugly, bloody, guilt-ridden situation.
Dawn: She doesn't work so she rakes her yard every morning and traps me at my car as I am trying to leave for work. I have to work. On a schedule. Okay, the schedule thing is a joke, but really, standing in my street talking about jam recipes or going to work and abusing those around me...seems easy enough.
The people behind us who have not yet invited us to use their pool: There's no need to be selfish.