Wednesday, February 10, 2010

One Of My Neighbors Is A Douche...

...and I'm not saying which one. (OK, I'll give you a hint; he's the one on the right -- but I'm not saying if it's the one on the right when I'm in the house facing out, or outside facing the house.)

Whenever I shovel snow from the sidewalks I make sure I shovel at least a noticeable distance over the property line on either side.  Maybe a shovel width, maybe a little less...but I make sure that it's really clear that I wasn't being persnickety about my  snow vs. their snow.  It's not really a big deal, but I'd feel like a dick if I didn't do it.

One neighbor is the same way.  If he's out there before I am, I always find that he's shoveled a little further than he technically needed to.

Tonight, I went outside to shovel up the final couple of inches of snow and the douchey neighbor had done his walk before I got out there.  First of all, I'd swear he laid down a chalkline to make sure he had a clear delineation between what he considered his snow and what he considered my fucking problem.  The only thing is...he decided to draw the line at the edge of his steps...not including the stonework banister. 

If I were more of a dick, I'd have left a 4" berm of his snow.

Douchebag.

7 comments:

Janiece said...

I hate that shit.

One of my proudest moments as a parent was when we had an enormous snowstorm. One of our neighbors was about 8 months pregnant, and her husband was out of town on business. The Smart Twins shoveled her walk and her driveway so she could get out of the house.

There was A LOT of snow, and they were middle schoolers.

Yeah. Proud mom.

mattw said...

The neighbor to our right is kind of like that. He does up to the property line, and I'll go well beyond a shovel full to his front steps. The neighbor on the other side though, has gone out of his way time and again to get our sidewalks and sometimes the very end of the driveway that the plow trucks bury if he's seen that I'm not at home.

Carol Elaine said...

Ya know, if you moved to Los Angeles, this wouldn't be an issue.

What?

Chris said...

For me, it's more like "One of my neighbors isn't a douche."

Nathan said...

Chris,

It works out to pretty much the same thing for me. I was just being a "glass half empty" kinda guy.

MWT said...

Maybe he had siblings. That were of the same gender and close in age. >.>

I don't have a proud moment story, but on one memorable occasion my siblings and I (three of us, high school and college) were faced with shoveling a foot of snow off our 3-car driveway. Then a pickup truck came by with a plow on the front. My sister paid them $20 to do the whole thing for us in five minutes. :D

choomism - belief that explosions of cheese make a different noise than other types of explosions.

Anne C. said...

I used to have an awesome neighbor who was on the corner (and therefore had miles of sidewalk to shovel) and would, if he got out there first would shovel my 35' of sidewalk. I had a couple opportunities to return the favor and figured my one or two shovelings of his 150' of sidewalk made up for the many times he shoveled mine.

Then he and his wife moved to Washington State to be near her family. :( I miss them.

nishe = where you put your art after you've had one too many glasses of wine.