We have new neighbors.
Can't tell you anything about them because I haven't seen hide 'nor hair of them since they moved in in early November. I know they're there - I saw the U-Hauls out front and now there are cars in the drive and lights on at night. But other than that, they've been invisible.
I can tell you one thing though - we dodged a bullet.
Back in October I was taking a break from work and had let the dogs in the backyard and was lost in thought. (Actually, I was having a smoke, but at the time I was still pretending I had quit, so let's go with "lost in thought".) The sound of screaming children was coming from one of the neighbors and it sounded like a schoolyard at recess. "What fresh hell is this?" I was thinking when suddenly I was startled by a high pitched woman's voice behind me...
"Hi y'all!"
I spun around to see a woman's head poking through one of the broken slats in the fence. She looked disembodied, like the head of a buck mounted on a wall.
"I'm Darlene and it looks like were gonna be neighbors!" she exclaimed.
Darlene was blond and looked to be early 30's. She was pretty in a cheap kind of way and spoke in a thick Texas twang.
"This house is just perfect for me and all my kids..." she continued.
It was only then that I realized all the screaming kids were in the yard behind her.
My dogs had wandered over to investigate the strange woman's head poking through the fence and as they approached there was the sound of a wolf lunging at the fence, the fence slightly buckling from the impact.
"We're gonna have to do somethin' about the fence 'cuz my dog will bust through this like nothin' and have your little dogs for lunch."
I was trying to absorb all this good news when one of the rugrats started pleading behind her...
"MommyMommyMommyMommy..."
Darlene's sunny disposition morphed into a scary looking scowl as she glanced behind her.
"GOD DAMN CHEYENNE NOT NOW. MOMMY IS TALKING TO OUR NEW NEIGHBOR!"
Yikes.
She turned her head back to me and the beauty queen smile popped back up.
"Y'all have a great day. And God bless."
Her head disappeared and I caught a glimpse of the pandemonium in the yard through the missing slat. We were fucked.
Back in September when I had created my little "Future Neighbor Poll" I had listed the choices as:
A. White Trash
B. Bible Thumpers
C. Shit Kickers
D. Section 8
It had never occurred to me to include "E. All of the Above".
Needless to say, Darlene never moved in.
Our first stroke of good luck since we moved here.
