Let me first state that smoking in a dirty, nasty habit and the boyfriend and I both rue the day we ever started. We've had a devil of a time quitting and have made many attempts over the years. They say there's no "good" time to try and quit, but there are in fact "bad" times to try, and being exiled to Bakersfield is definitely one of them.
So we went ahead and rented a "smoking" duplex.
Which brings us to our passive aggressive, bi-polar neighbor, Mary.
Mary does not like our smoking one bit.
At first it started with a bit of kabuki theater, a grand performance of hacking coughs the minute we stepped out the back door. She doesn't appear to work and evidently spends the day lurking near her back door waiting for us to come out. I believe in law enforcement circles that's referred to as "lying in wait".
She then ramped up the show and turned her back patio into an al fresco ICU unit, with heavy gauge plastic (pictured above).
And recently she's upped the ante, angrily voicing her disapproval every time we step outside. Who she's talking to is anyone's guess. I assume it's her dogs, but for all I know it's the voices in her head. Whatever the case, we're clearly the intended audience.
But here's the thing...
We don't smoke outside anymore.
At least not near her. In deference to her issues, if we do smoke outside, we go to the far side of the house, 50 feet away and around a corner, next to our other neighbor Cindy, who smokes like a chimney and couldn't care less. Or we just smoke inside, which we're allowed.
But that doesn't matter to Mary. She will not be ignored.
So I open the back door to let the dogs out into the yard...
"Oh my God the SMOKE is awful!"
I step outside to water the plants...
"Oh my God they're SMOKING again!"
I'm in the backyard, shaking out a rug...
"Everyone get inside... (to the dogs) I don't want you exposed to all that SMOKE!"
I take out the trash...
"Oh my God it STINKS out here!"
Needless to say, no one's ever smoking and there's never any smoke. But in Mary's mind, huge billowing clouds are wafting over the fence and slowly killing her.
We should be so lucky.
