#7 Love Our Neighbors
Apr 15th, 2008 by doing better
If we really loved our neighbors, the neighborhood would inevitably turn into one big cult, and sooner or later the FBI would have to raid it. Be careful what you wish for!
Personally I have no intention of loving my neighbors, or even meeting them. First you say hello at the mailbox, and the next thing you know they’re in your backyard having a barbecue and borrowing stuff you don’t need out of your garage.
Our neighbors at my dad’s house represent the dark side and the light side, neither of which I feel able to love. On the light side is a movie star in exile from Hollywood who is not friendly unless the parcel delivery service leaves something at our house by mistake. On the dark side, shaded by oak trees, is an aristocratic Hispanic family who were the king and queen of Fiesta a few years ago, an occasion for which they kept a pet goat in their backyard and let my little sister play with it until the time came for the goat to be ritually slaughtered. They had a crazy grandmother who would sometimes come over to our house to use the telephone to call her therapist and was subsequently murdered in a basement a few streets over. But at least the dark side invited us to their Halloween party. My dad had an allergic reaction to his mask and had to leave after five minutes.
God knows what our neighbors think of our family. “That man, how many wives has he had? How many children? And still making babies? Doesn’t he know when to stop?”
They don’t know our master plan. When there are enough of us, we can buy up all the houses on the block, and then we won’t have to love our neighbors anymore.