Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Holiday 2010: My parents' neighbors are kichigai (crazy)

These neighbors of Jeff and Okasan's are pretty hen desu (strange). Okasan thinks they are about in their mid 60's to 70 years old. The husband is employed as some kind of armed security guard.
One night, their American flag was ripped from their flagpole (presumably by a strong gust of wind), past my parents' house and onto the roof of the house on the far side. Okasan is convinced that their neighbors believe that the Lundell household had something to do with it, because ever since that night, the two give looks of poison if my mother or step dad try to say, "hello" to them.
Jeff told me about a time when he was walking Matsugoro (their poodlish mongrel) outside and had to pass within a few feet of the neighbor lady. Jeff gave an obligatory, "hello". She seized the opportunity to give a dramatic sneer, turned the opposite direction and walked away. Jeff did a pretty convincing reenactment of the exchange for Noriko and I.
Another time, Jeff found some dog poop that had been thrown onto his driveway. He insisted that Matsugoro (who is only outside when supervised and then taken back inside after business) might have went unchi too close to the neighbor's rock yard, even though it was well within his own property lines. The neighbors wanted to make a point.
In front of our houses, the far side of the street does not permit parking- it's housing community rules. So we all park on the closest side of the street to Jeff and Okasan's house... just not in front of the neighbors' house. Okasan has us and our guests move our vehicles any time someone is parked in the street in front of the evil neighbors' house.
The other day, someone parked their car on the roadside in front of the lava rock lawn while visiting someone up the road. My step dad walked out and saw that a note was placed under their windshield wiper. He couldn't help himself. He went up and read it, and came back to the house shaking his head with a look of exasperation on his face.
Now Okasan, Yuichi and I all had to know what the note said. We all put on our shoes and enthusiastically approached the car and took turns reading the note.
I really wanted to take a photo of the note, but my parents forbade me in the interest of keeping peace.

To paraphrase, here's the gist of what it said:
"To the owners of this car,
You are very rude and inconsiderate to park in front of a lawn that we worked so hard to decorate for Christmas. I hope Jesus forgives your stupidity."

I'm serious. They pulled to Jesus card.
Okasan joked that we should write a note that said, "But Buddha says it's legal to park here," and post it on the neighbor's door.
One of the house occupants must have seen us reading their note and laughing about it, because when we looked several minutes later, the car was still parked there, but the note was gone.

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