The Neighborhood and Nicknames

When the Evil Twin and I got married, the next order of business was finding a home to buy and settle in. We looked all over. We eventually learned that in our price range (almost zilch), there wasn't much available that seemed even somewhat habitable.

I would check the classifieds for houses and the real estate guides, and then I stumbled upon information on a new subdivision being built, in the next county over and the prices were what we could afford. So, we set about choosing a lot and having our little 3 bedroom, mid-entry built.

After many months and many set-backs and many altercations with the contractor (who was only slightly evolved from a caveman), we signed the closing papers and moved in - one month shy of our first anniversary. We were so proud to be homeowners and our little house was fine for the time being.

Then, we get to know the neighbors. Oh my! What a pack of loons we were surrounded by. The next door neighbors were fundamentalist Christian (not that there's anything wrong with that). However, they were so hyper religious, we dubbed them Ned and Maude Flanders (after "The Simpsons" cartoon characters). They were okay, but if you were on your driveway more than 5 seconds, Maude would come out and proceed to chat your head off. She also targeted other people walking their dogs or strolling by. After a while, we started to refer to this accosting as "being Flandered". We got Flandered a lot. They eventually moved out.

The neighbors behind us were just trash. We called them "The Nut-Nuts". The Nut-Nuts had two nut-nut kids who were menaces to the neighborhood. They would turn out their little dog, Co-co and then stand at the back door, hollering "Co-co, Co-co, Co-co" ad nauseum until I wanted to run out there and just grab the nasty, barking moron and hand it to them. One night, Mr. Nut-Nut went to the store to buy more beer and was pursued by the cops until he wrapped himself around a tree and killed himself. Shortly thereafter, Mrs. Nut-Nut had a new boyfriend living there. He had precisely four teeth and they got a pit bull that was so aggresive, I would not allow Buddy in the back yard. And, I traveled very quickly from the car into the house with my small child. (I feared "Little Benny" would jump the fence and maul us both).

When the house across the street went on the market, we were happy when a nice young couple with two girls bought it. Well, until the husband would ring our doorbell at odd hours of the evening for coffee or something else to mooch when he was over there doing remodeling before they moved in. He was quite possibly the hairiest man on the planet and he would often mow his grass shirtless (with an electric mower, no less). He was dubbed "Captain Caveman". Once, the Evil Twin was getting out of his car and Captain Caveman was mowing his grass. When he saw ET, he stopped his mower to come across the road for a chat. Later, the Evil Twin related that Captain Caveman had a large, yellow snot wad that was just dangling right on top of his mustache and apparently had no clue. Poor ET, it was all he could do not to wretch right in front of the dude.

Our next door neighbor was the superintendent of the county school system. He was a sauce hound and was always drunk. Nice, huh?

The neighbors in the cul-de-sac had two see thru children we called "The Albinos". The Albino children and the Nut-Nut children often ran around together. Once, we were running the sprinkler in our front yard and they were all out in OUR yard (before we had children) - playing in the sprinkler. Fine, fine. I let them do it. Then, they rang my doorbell and asked for towels and popsicles!!!! I said I had neitherand they went away.

The toothless boyfriend of Mrs. Nut-Nut would go around the neighborhood and offer to do "odd jobs", so he became "Odd Jobs". Odd jobs, as I mentioned, only had four teeth - what appeared to be 2 eye teeth up top and two similar placed teeth on the bottom. As a result of his toothlessness, he pronounced his Js as Ds. So, the older couple on the top of the hill (who also owned the lots therein) were Dim and Dune (Jim and June).

Another couple moved in - he was a cop, she was a nurse. They had differing stories on their marital status, but they had a little boy and later had a girl. They were a biracial couple (again, nothing wrong with that), but we honored them with the nicknames "Ebony and Ivory". Ebony was the cop and he would tell the biggest lies in the world. For example, he had a detail once in which he did security work when President Bush was in town. Later, he told us all that the president was coming to their BBQ at their house. We all laughed and wondered where he'd land Chopper One.

After 10 years of living amongst these colorful characters, we had enough. The interest rates were good and we had enough equity and we needed more room. So, we put our house on the market and started searching again. This time, we knew we weren't going to build... we wanted an older house, one with character and not a fixer upper. We found our current house and fell in love. It was more than we wanted to spend, but we figured we'd save money by being closer to Buddy's school and with a large down payment, our mortgage wouldn't be a complete strain.

Now, we only have one set of neighbors with nicknames and that's the couple across from us. They moved in a few months after us (that house was on the market when we bought this one). And, ever since then, they are rarely seen. So, we call them Momma and Poppa Roach. It's like daylight would kill 'em or something.

But, that's fine with us. I'd rather they be stand offish than be all up in our bizness all the time (not that we're cooking meth or anything - we just like our privacy). Socializing with the people we choose as friends is much better.