Bad Weather Makes Good Neighbors
I am a bad neighbor.
I don’t mean I call the police if there is a loud party within earshot, or egg their cars if they take my parking spot.
Which has happened.
(taking my spot, not the egging)
What I mean is that I have lived in my townhouse for over twenty-five years and have a nodding acquaintance with most of my neighbors. A few I know by name, but most are just a “hey, how are you doing” when we pass each other in the parking lot.
To justify my lack of relationships with my neighbors, I live in a townhouse. When I worked, I’d come home at night, park in my spot, and go into my house. I don’t have a front yard, and I have a small back deck that I’m not allowed to have a grill on (HOAs are horrible).
So my interaction with my neighbors was limited at best.
But two things happened over the last six months that changed everything.
At the end of last summer, a friend of mine who did construction his whole career did some amazing upgrades to my house (Thanks, Thom). In addition, I had my first-floor windows and sliding back door replaced.
It was the first upgrades I’d done to my house in almost twenty-five years.
So with the work trucks in my parking spot, whenever I was outside, my neighbors took the opportunity to ask what work I was having done (in my house, not plastic surgery).
The second was the massive snowstorm we had on January 25th of this year.
In my complex, there are not a lot of places to put shoveled snow. When I went to dig out my car, a handful of neighbors were doing the same.
I nodded hello to most.
Then I noticed a young woman (early thirties, my guess) shoveling snow to get her car out of its spot. I went over and began to shovel alongside her. We chatted a bit as we crossed paths, picking up and disposing of the snow.
Once her car was cleared, she helped me do the same for mine.
When both cars were clear, I asked her how long she’d had her car.
“About nine years,” she said, then added, “about as long as I’ve been living here.”
I know I don’t see much of my neighbors, but this woman had lived in the townhouse next to mine for nine years.
That shocked even me.
We shared a wall.
Which led to her saying, “Sometimes, I hear you sneeze at night, and every time I do, I say ‘Bless you.’”
That made me laugh because I sneeze like a cat—five sneezes in quick succession, and very, very loud.
My sneezes are so loud I half-expected someone to say, “God bless you.”
And apparently, someone had been.
I did give her my card with my name, number, and URL of my blog.
So, if by any chance you are reading this, I would just like to say—thank you.
