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| Thursday, January 31, 2008 01:36 PM |
| We Live with Archetypes |
 by Fëanor |
I was just realizing recently that a lot of the people in our development seem to fit various neighbor stereotypes distressingly well.
We have The Grumpy Old Man living in the building next to us, who yelled at us for not getting out of his way fast enough when we were getting groceries out of our car one day, and also yelled at us for allowing our dog to pee on the grass (apparently he feels the animals should do their business on the concrete sidewalks instead). (Oddly enough, the Grumpy Old Man's car has been missing from his parking space for at least a week now, and we haven't seen him around. Other people have even parked in his spot, and we didn't see him pop out of his place instantly in a rage, shaking his fist at them. So maybe we don't have to worry about him anymore...)
Downstairs we have the Couple Who Scream and Fight All the Time. They're pretty awesome. Besides arguing with each other at the tops of their lungs at all hours of the day and night (arguments which usually end with the woman screaming, "Get out!"), they also vacuum and clean constantly. Actually, we're pretty sure it's the woman who does the cleaning, to annoy the man. Our next door neighbor (who is one half of the Nice Young Couple Who Just Had a Baby) told us she was taking her dog out one night when the screaming couple's door opened, some keys came flying out the door and landed on the sidewalk, and the door slammed shut. Quickly thereafter the guy came out in his boxers, grumbled, picked up the keys, and went back in.
There's also the Crazy Lady who lives down the street. We actually met her before we moved in. Her condo was up for sale, supposedly, so we came to see it, but she wouldn't let us in, and told us the roof was about to collapse, and why wouldn't anyone fix it?! Or something like that. We turned around and left before she was even done talking. It was clear she was insane. She very rarely comes out, but we saw her getting her mail one day. After she'd gotten it out of the box, she covered her head and ran back inside, apparently afraid the sun would melt her.
Finally, there's the Bossy, Nosy Lady, who likes to walk behind the other condos with her two old dogs strung way far apart on really long leashes. She's constantly bugging us as to whether we have bags with us for our dog's poop, because some people don't pick up after their dogs, and that's just not right. She also likes to ask us pointed questions about stuff she happened to see us doing. The other day Sarah found a stray dog and I was out walking it. I got lucky and met a guy who knew whose dog it was, so I took it back. She had seen me with the dog, and asked me some days later, "Was that your dog? I didn't think so. What were you doing with it?"
Of course, there are perfectly nice, perfectly non-archetypal people living in our development, too. But they're less interesting. And they're just the exceptions that prove the rule. |
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| Tagged (?): Personal (Not) | |
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