[footfootfoot]

Here's the proposed memo:


Hi,
Welcome to the neighborhood!

I gotta tell you that almost nothing pisses me off more than dogs barking except perhaps for neighbors who let their dogs shit on my lawn. THAT really frigging irks me. I’ve been known to go out with a shovel, scoop up the dog crap and deposit it on the dog owner’s porch. I figure if they think it is so wonderful that I would like it as a gift, then they shouldn’t mind me returning the favor.

It’s easy though to think it is the dog’s fault and that dogs are the problem, in my less charitable moments I have harbored fantasies about swiftly dispatching certain dogs. Of course, the real problem is almost never the dog. The problem nearly always lies with the owner. In that regard, owners of annoying dogs are not unlike parents of annoying children. In both cases the purported guardians are merely using their charges to express whatever hostility they feel unable to express themselves. That’s as far as I am willing to go with that line of reasoning without actually schooling in psychology, but as they say, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

Speaking of which way the wind blows, I’m going to hazard a guess that you are, like I am, not from around here and probably from Manhattan or one of the five boroughs. There is a family here named “King” They moved here from Bennington, VT shortly before WWII. Around here they are referred to as “The Kings from Bennington.” There is another family that’s been here for three generations, I was talking to the guy who delivers our fuel oil and that family’s name came up, “Oh, yeah. They’re not from around here.” He told me.

They’re not from around here? Shit. By that metric, I haven’t even arrived yet and I’ve been here a dozen years. Gradually, I have come to realize that everyone in this town is related to, married to, or working for everyone else. Some of the family names you hear around here can be found on the revolutionary war and civil war memorials. Think Hatfield and McCoy. The upshot of it is, this is a really, really small village and while you don’t have to be lovey-dovey with everyone, it certainly won’t help your case to alienate people.

The only reason I don’t walk out of my house at night and put a few rounds into the asshole neighbor’s barking dog is I’ll never know when the guy fixing my brakes turns out to be his brother’s cousin’s sister’s boyfriend’s dad; which he probably is.

That being said, if someone’s car alarm goes off in the middle of the night (I mean WTF?) I will give you the bricks from my chimney to throw through their windshield.

Cheers,

Your, for now anonymous, Neighbor