Whump

And thus begins my tale of the super bitchy neighbor.

Lets take it back a ways, shall we? To the days where I was waiting tables at the resort, nursing my father, and hating nearly every part of my life. At least, every part that required me to be nice to people, i.e. my job.

My neighbors are a retired couple. They are loaded with money--I mean, Big time bucks. They own multiple homes, and only spend their summers here. We live in a 4-plex--I am on the bottom left, they are on the top right. A huge staircase divides the front of our building--if someone is coming to see the neighbors, they will only look at my front door if they are lost.

This is pertinent. I'm getting to that.

Anyway, I'm waiting tables and hating every freaking moment of it, and the neighbors come in. Lets call them.....June and Floyd. June is one of those retired women you hate. Flashy jewelry, uber tailored clothes in every shade of pastel, the neck scarf. The attitude. The only thing missing is a small dog in a matching outfit. Floyd is the typical down-trodden husband--the sweetest man on the planet who obviously hates his wife but long ago learned to just shut his mouth and roll with it.

Anyway, they would come in and June would pitch a fit about getting a table on the deck, because, you know, she's LOCAL (for three months a year), and it's too NOISY inside (it's a fucking bar, bitch). I would always manage to wind up waiting on them because my coworkers were (and mostly still are) horrible people who didn't like to share. (Unless it was money. Then they wanted some of that.) Anyway, Floyd would be nice, and polite, and smile and make pleasant conversation, while June would bitch and complain (in the most saccharine of voices) about everything from the amount of ice in her cocktail to the formation of the birds on the beach.

One day, during 'happy hour' (which is the least happy hour for anyone in Food and Beverage) June and Floyd came in, and after their meal and drinks (which, at happy hour prices, came to under $25) June asked me if I would give them my employee discount.

I thought she was kidding.

When I laughed, she remained anus-lipped and gave a hearty sniff in my direction.

"No, dear, I mean it. Come on now, we're NEIGH-bors!!" When I explained that during happy hour we couldn't discount the already discounted food, and that I couldn't give my discount to anyone but myself, she asked me to pay for their meal. When I then explained that no, I wouldn't be doing that, and even if I wanted to couldn't purchase alcohol while on the clock, she grudgingly paid. To the penny and nothing more.

Floyd came back an hour later and pressed $5 in my palm. Told me I more than deserved it and thanked me for my kindness while dealing with his wife.

Cut to my father's death. June does nothing but stare out her windows and into the business of others, so she knew before anyone else did that something was amiss in our house. She had seen the ambulance at 3am, she said, after knocking on our front door at 8:30, and wanted to know 'if everything was alright'. Luckily, my sister answered the door as I would have punched her in the face repeatedly while sobbing. (Dad had been gone for under two hours at that point. We had all been up all night, and had just started the wonderful task of 'Making the Phone Call'. Not so much in the mood for company.)

When my sister told her that our dad had died just a few hours before, that we appreciated the concern, that wasn't enough for June. "What happened? He was sick, right? Did he die here? Was he alone?"

Hence the punching.

Anyway, she made a huge spectacle about it, pretended that she loved my dad, that he was such a great commodity to our community, and never mentioned the fact that she had never spoken to him.

She sent a card, flowers. All nice gestures. Seriously, people don't know what to do when someone dies--they send food, or flowers, or cards, and all it does is annoy the people who receive it. We're all guilty of it, and I now have 124 vases that I don't know what to do with.

So I have seen June a few times since then. She had invited T and me to her "Kentucky Derby Party", which we declined. "Wear a fun hat, darling!", she shouted down to me. Like hell I will, lady.

Anyway, since we declined her invitation, she has begun a war with me. I have apparently offended her sensibilities by not drinking mint juleps and wearing a ridiculous hat in her company.

I ran into her a few months back and she told me I needed to keep my kitchen blinds closed. "It's unseemly, dear, how everyone can see your coffee pot. They should be looking at the beauty of the garden, not what's on your counter."

You can only see my coffee pot if you stare intently in the window, which is what she had been doing.

"June, if people are coming to your house, they can't possibly see my coffee pot without trying", I told her.

What ensued was a huff of sorts.

My fucking blinds are open. All. The. Time. I could be running a sweat shop in that damn kitchen and it would be none of her concern. It's MY kitchen. I own the damn thing.

Later, she made a stink about my outdoor closet door being open. Didn't tell me, you see, but the members of the condo association. (All terrible bitches, save one, who is great.) So there is the huge to-do about my door being open.

I closed the door.

But the latest one, oh, the latest one.....The bitch is lucky I haven't keyed her car.

But that's a story for another time.

Some highlights, for those who care:

Our vacation? Not so much a vacation anymore.