I consider myself a good, God fearing man. I try to live my life with the good book as my guide. For those of you who think you know me, no, it is not a Tom Clancy novel…even though they are enthralling…it’s the Bible. For all of those chuckling out there who can’t believe I have read even one line out of the Bible, oh contraire. I have cracked the Good Book and read it from cover to cover. First impression, it made Dicken’s Great Expectations seem like a page turner written by James Patterson. Not the most riveting read but it did have some really good story lines. I read the Bible as a book report assignment when I was in college. I broke it down into two different assignments. The first one was the Old Testament and the second, the New Testament. It was one of those assignments given at the beginning of a semester to be turned in at the end of the semester. It was not an easy read but I did get it done. Instead of reading it as a spiritual inspiration, I simply considered it a book.
Before all of you out there start tearing your shirts open and screaming “blasphemy” (that’s from the Bible, so there’s proof), this was not my first acquaintance with the Bible. I go to church every week and I went to Catholic schools when I was young. As a result, I am very aware of the teachings of the Bible and that it is the word of God. But, it is still a book and instead of reading it and trying to decipher every little meaning of each verse, I wanted to see if it held any entertainment value and it does.
I know this is a round-about way for making the point I want, but I didn’t want anyone to think that I didn’t know my source material. I am going to be talking about my neighbors and how the Biblical line, “Love thy neighbor,” is causing me great consternation. I understand the point of what Christ called the “second greatest commandment” but there are times I would just love to crossover into one of their yards and try that “eye for an eye” thingy.
Everyone has neighbor issues. It could be how neatly they keep their property or how many cars they have parked in their driveway, on the street, on their lawns and in front of my driveway. It might be the party animals with the stereo blaring into the night every weekend and drunken revelry when you are trying to sleep and no matter how far you bury your head into the pillow…sorry, got off track. Trying to “love” someone as irritating as these neighbors, (you know who I’m talking about Phil) is a challenge but I’m trying.
There’s this one house down the street who decided to paint his house the most sickening color of pink. It looked like he purchased every available bottle of Pepto Bismol in the area and painted his house with it. You might get away with that on an island in the Caribbean, but not in a traditional American neighborhood. I have to wear my sunglasses as I pass by the house.
Good news is, I do have an outlet to complain about what this neighbor has done. Our Home Owners Association is responsible for making sure all members abide with the CC&Rs (rules of the association). The bad news, said neighbor is the President of our HOA.
Our little HOA is run like a fiefdom. There are just a few homeowners who care about the HOA and they get on the board and run it like a little banana republic. If they want to do something with their home no matter how far it is outside the CC&Rs, no problem. If anyone complains about it, they come down with vengeance and nitpick any little thing about the complainants property. I am pretty sure they are building their own little army to secure their grasp over the community. They are disguised as the gardeners that are constantly waking everyone up at 6:30 in the morning with their leave blowers. While trimming the hedges, they are building dossiers on homeowners in an effort to keep the home owners in line.
Being the good neighbor that I am, I tolerate what they do, mainly out of fear that one day they will write me up for the bird bath I put in the front yard without HOA approval. They could put a lean on my property and I could lose my house. So, I’m forced to “love thy neighbor,” no matter how much I want to kick their butt.
I guess I could just run for the Board of Directors and reform how our community is run but that won’t work. They meet on Monday nights and there’s a football game on the tube. Guess I just have to dig deep and keep loving thy neighbor so I won’t miss the game. I’m sure a couple of cold brews and nachos will help me be more tolerant.
DISCLAIMER: (A first) I want everyone to know that this article is all in jest, written in the hopes of generating a few laughs and the incidents are exaggerated or just made up…or are they. I’ll let you know as soon as the spy with the weed wacker quits looking in my window.
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