The time I had really, really bad neighbors.

I've had really, really weird neighbors. In college I lived on Franklin St NE right where Capital Hill and Brookland and a giant cemetery meet. At this house we had a downstairs neighbor that for this little story I'll call "Scavid Dot" Scavid was an ex-Marine who split his time between Texas and DC. I know he was an ex-Marine because I went into his apartment once to turn on the circuit breaker and did some snooping. God I hope he never reads this. So Scavid the Marine was a creep. He was so creepy that one time my roommate Jim caught him going through our trash. In August. When Jim said "Uh, hey what are you doing?" Scavid said, "I'm going through your trash." And that was that.

Then I lived on Newton Street in a duplex next to an old black woman who had probably owned her half of the house since the beginning of time. Considering the first thing we did when we moved in was spray paint a giant gargoyle by our front door fluorescent pink and then throw a party, we didn't make an ideal first impression on her. Below is an actual picture of our front porch:

a. Unkempt hedges and yard. My dad came over uninvited one day in the fall to mow our lawn. We didn't touch it again for another nine months.
b. Loud music.
c. A bucket of various foodstuffs and other debris.
d. Charming, filthy patio furniture. (The chair folded up in the corner broke in September and wasn't thrown out until June. It just sat there in the corner ALL YEAR.)
e. Dead, dry leaves piles on which cigarette butts were thrown.
This culminated in one of roommates coming into the house one day, slamming the door and simply proclaiming "That bitch!" Now none of us were sure which bitch she was talking about so when pressed for more information she explained:
She was sitting outside on the patio, minding her own business when the old lady next door came home from grocery shopping. She hobbled up to her porch, shuffled over to the door, scrounged around for her keys, turned to my roommate and said "You need to clean your porch." Now I don't remember exactly what my roommate said but in my head she replied, "You need to mind your own business."* Shocked, the old woman paused, looked at her and said,
"Girl, you must have been raised white trash."
That's when my roommate, indignant, stood up and walked into the house.

Now I would like to conclude this by saying our neighbor was never anything but nice to me so this is all based on other peoples experiences. She even went so far to help me out in a snowstorm. I was late for class and picking the ice off my car windshield with a high heel when she graciously offered me her ice-scraper.

But this leads me all up to my neighbors in New York. I feel that karmic retribution is being paid for me taking advantage of having such passive neighbors in Washington. First, there are my upstairs neighbors or as I like to call them "the delightful family of running centaurs and shrieking banshee babies." Then there is my next door neighbor, XXXX, I write "XXXX" not because I want to protect her but because I have NO IDEA WHAT HER NAME IS. To make it worse, not only does she remember my name but she remembers really specific details about my life. Here's the conversation we had the other day in the hall.
"Hey Katie!", said XXXX.
"Hey you! Long time no see? How are... things and stuff?"
"Oh, they're good Katie, how about you? Are you still going to the beach this August with your family? Do you think some of your college friends will be there like last year?" says XXXX.
Now, this is slightly exaggerated but she's on this list cause of the massive amount of guilt I feel everytime I see her and don't remember her name.

My other next door neighbors were a family with a bird. Nice enough but they always made curry and always sent the crippled, hobbly grandmother out to throw the trash away. She would have to hold onto the wall as she walked down the hall to the disposal. They're on my list for the curry and the fact that I never saw an able-bodied member of their family take out the trash.

Eventually they moved (after putting a post-it note on my door asking if they could buy my apartment- weird) and the Grunter moved in. Here is a composite sketch:

Any similarities to my Dad with long hair is completely accidental. Also it's not the guy from the Ugliest Haircut Ever a few years back. It's simply to illustrate that he has long hair and is bald on top. (Again, God I hope my neighbors don't read this.)
The first time we met was in December when, while walking down the hall I said "Hi, how are you?" and he said... nothing. And NO he didn't have his headphones in cause I checked. So that was that until today when I walked by him and said, "Hi" and he "grunted." The dialogue is actually the same as in the drawing so I don't really need to go into it much further.

The point of this entry is not to air my neighbor grievances but rather reminisce about when I was the obnoxious neighbor... the one that was dirty and loud and thoughtless and didn't bang on the ceiling with a broomstick. I miss that and hope one day I can live in a world where I can spray paint a gargoyle and grunt and piss my neighbors off.

*Ex-roommate if you could be so kind as to provide some sort of transcript of the argument between you and the old woman, I would be most grateful.