Disgruntled neighbors

"Did you happen to talk to the neighbors yet?" my girlfriend asked.

"No, why?"

"Deanna was right, they're very unfriendly."

I haven't had the chance to meet many of my new neighbors, because I work opposite schedules of most of them and I already know two of them, Teddy Boy and Otis O'Flannigan, who both live in separate apartments in the building. It's very nice for us, being we can walk a few feet and sit in each other's living room. It's like having a built in drinking network in the apartment complex, I'm sure to the dislike of our girlfriends and wives. So I am very friendly with these neighbors, because of the shared love of drinking, but I haven't really had the pleasure, or displeasure, of meeting everyone.

"Those people below us are very strange," she said, "and they aren't very friendly," she continued.

"Why. What did they do?" I asked, more curious than concerned.

"I was carrying stuff up the back steps, because I couldn't fit all the groceries through the front door and I had to walk past the guy while he was cooking out. I apologized and said, 'sorry about walking through your porch area, but I couldn't fit through the front' and I laughed, thinking he'd laugh and say it was all right, but he looked a me, said nothing, and turned back to his grill and pretended like I wasn't even there."

I laughed, "Then he probably loves it when I walk through his porch area, lugging cases of beer all the time."

It's true. I never use the front entrance because I don't have a key and I prefer walking up the back staircase anyway. I guess I can see how it can be annoying when you don't have a private porch and you are subject to foot traffic all the time. I don't know how it feels because I have the top deck and nobody has any need to come up here, unless they want to get a good look at me or peep in the windows. After my girlfriend told me of his dislike of us, I had to laugh when I thought about carrying my stuff up the back staircase, banging into his chairs and grill every time I moved something into the apartment. He must have loved the bed moving day, when Otis O'Flannigan and I rested the mattress on his porch to laugh because Otis was so hung over.

"Are those the people Teddy Boy was telling us about?" I asked.

"Yeah, Deanna said she says hi to them all the time and they just stare at her and continue on with what they're doing. The other day, when I was showing the apartment to my friend, we were standing at the front door and the guy got out of his car, started walking towards the front, and stopped when he saw us standing there. We even moved aside to give him room to come in but he just sighed and walked around the building.

"Yeah, Teddy Boy said he kills them with kindness, purposely acts extra nice to the point where he's being openly annoying, and they still give him a look of contempt."

"They're assholes," my girlfriend stated.

"Hey, you know what would be funny as hell," I said.

"What?"

"They always leave their door open and only have the screen door closed. I should pretend that we're like best friends with them, you know, press my face against the screen and say things like, 'Boy, somebody is cooking something yummy in there,' every time I walk past their door."

My girlfriend laughed.

I may be their worst nightmare. They probably love when the wind blows and stray cigarette butts and beer caps land on their porch, raining down from the porch of their new best friends. Or when I use my chainsaw to cut small trees in the back field, only to be used in the bonfire directly below their open windows. This could be the start of a wonderful relationship, new BFF's.