That Vacant Lot In My Eyes

I have the most evil neighbors on the planet living behind me.

OK, OK...true (thankfully), I don't live next to the Dugard clan or anything; I'm defining "evil" here as annoying, spiteful, cluelessly venomous...and let's be honest: assholish.

The day we moved in ten years ago, I saw the husband over the fence and said hi. He ignored me. I tried a little small talk, mentioning that I'd be happy to help repair or replace the fence (which was leaning badly in places and clearly needing to be fixed) if he was interested as well. "I'm never doing that," he spat at me. I was, obviously, a little confused, and didn't reply, being a little stunned at his response. "It's your fault anyway," he continued after a beat. "Your dogs jumping on the fence. I'm not paying a f*cking dime to fix the fence."

I didn't even have a dog at that time, the previous owner had never had a dog, and we'd just moved in that day.

Welcome to the friggin' neighborhood.

Over the years, I've had some pretty baffling encounters with these people:

• Our backyard in on a slope lower than theirs; one day a pipe broke in their pond and we had a river - literally - flowing from our back fence, all the way across our back yard to the front gate (fifteen feet wide and 6 inches deep), all the way across our front yard, down the sidewalk and then past three houses to the sewer drain. I called over there to let them know, and he grunted part skepticism, part disinterest with my story. The next day: no change. And the next day. And the next. I called again, left a message. No change. Our backyard was a swamp. Bushes and plants were dying. I called again: nothing. Finally after two weeks, I called the city - they said they'd check it out. Nothing happened. Weeks after it started, we came home from work one day to find a notice attached to our front door: we were going to be fined if we didn't fix "our" water runoff problem. The city, in their brilliance, saw the water running freely out of our front yard and assigned blame to us - even though I had formally lodged a complaint. My neighbor was winning; this was no good. I called the city and left a message...that afternoon I saw my neighbor poking around in his backyard, and got his attention. "It's not my problem," he said offhandedly when I reiterated the repeated phone calls to him and pointed out the swamp I was standing calf-deep in from the river running straight from his backyard. "It's not flooding MY yard." Wow. Ultimately, I got the city out, got them in the neighbor's back yard, had them threaten to turn off their water entirely until they got it fixed (and get hit with a huge fine to turn it back on), and then go on their merry, clueless, bureaucratic way. It was soon fixed. But three days later: swampland. I called the city again - they came out...same process. Over the next three years this happened eight more times, and each time I informed my neighbor he had a broken pipe, he would get pissed off at me for bothering him. 
• Picture beautiful, warm, sunny summer evenings...friends sharing cold beers, good wine, delicious food, easy conversation...then suddenly: "SHUT UP YOU F*CKING B*TCH!" Silence. Then, "I TOLD YOU TO GET THE F*CKING PHONE!" "HOW MANY F*CKING TIMES?" "YOU'RE A GODDAMNED IDIOT!" Ladies and gentlemen: my f*cking neighbors. Fighting. Again. In their backyard.
• These dolts have three yappy, annoying, rat-sized dogs. They bark all. frigging. day. Every day. Any time we even go into our back yard: yapyapyap! Raking leaves: yapyapyap! Kids playing on the swingset: yapyapyap. From 6am to 10pm. Our dog, thankfully, isn't a barker, but he is a herder, and when those rats start yapping, he starts running back and forth along the fence in a frenzy wanting nothing more than to eat them. I absolutely feel his pain. Over the years, the rats and my dog have taken advantage of the dilapidated fence (worsened during that time by the water rot from his seasonal river) to find holes that they had scratched and clawed into weak spots. One saturday morning, 6:33am, my phone rings. What the hell...? I answer and before I can even get out a "hello," I hear, "I'M GOING TO F*CKING SUE YOU! I'LL SEE YOU IN COURT! YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL MY DOGS! YOU'LL PAY FOR THIS!!!" I'm barely awake, but suddenly my blood pressure spikes as I can obviously tell it's my evil neighbor's evil wife; thankfully I have enough sarcasm in me to say, "Hi, who are you trying to reach? I think you have the wrong number..." I had to actually hold the phone away from my ear as the tirade of curses and screaming was overwhelming. Apparently, a weak spot in the fence has been opened up by her vermin, repeatedly launching themselves at my fence while yapping incessantly over the years. That morning, when I had let my dog out, the rats had gone ballistic, throwing themselves at the hole...and one of them had, brilliantly, hurled its face directly into the nail, apparently breaking it's jaw and causing a bloody mess. My dog was calmly sitting on the back porch. I asked her why she would threaten to sue someone for something her dogs were 100% responsible for, and the screaming turned into a single, frustrated, high pitched wail. I was loving this. "Thanks for calling," I interrupted, "...it's a beautiful morning. Have a wonderful day!" 

Are you getting the gist?

So keep this in the back of your mind as I relate this back to Survivor...

I've been feeling...(gasp!) disinterested in Survivor recently. C'mon, admit it - it's been boring. Yes, the weather has been taking a brutal toll on the action and scheming. Yes, the single tribe dominance has been predictable. Yes, it has seemed like CBS has run out of ideas to shake things up in its 19th season.

But the formula should have been working - one part abs, two parts fake boobs, one part smarmy dimples: it should be flawless!

 + + =

The winning combination...

Combined with someone hacking into my Facebook account, pretending they were me and asking my friends for money because I was apparently overseas and mugged of everything I owned (except, of course, easy access to my Facebook account)...I haven't even had the energy to write these updates for the past couple weeks.

But last night...oh baby!

Brilliance.

Like sunlight bursting through the clouds after a long storm...

Like sudden freedom after endless incarceration...

Like the return of a long-lost friend... 

OK, bad example.

From the get-go, Russell is infecting the few remaining members of his tribe with plans to stick together at the merge. They meticulously work the contestants, trying to gain trust, discovering cracks, formulating strategy.

Prior to the immunity challenge, Russell even works it well enough to seemingly ensure a boot of backstabbing, two-faced, scheming, distrustful, lying, bible-thumpin' Laura, much to the chagrin of backstabbing, two-faced, scheming, distrustful, lying, bible-thumpin' fans everywhere...

But, in a glorious unexpected show of prowess, Laura and her God win the immunity idol, sending the tribe into an unprecedented cauldron of bubbling, spewing, psychotic, non-stop scheming.

Tremendous.

It's absolute, chaotic pandemonium among the contestants as the drama and tension builds into something akin to that high-pitched whine my evil neighbor emitted when threatening to sue me for her dog inflicting pain upon itself.

I was suddenly feeling all warm and cuddly inside...

And when Eric definitively states how sorry Russell, Jaison, Natalie and Mick are at tribal council, brutally demeaning, berating and trivializing their entire existence and lack of self worth on this planet, you could just sense greatness was in the air.

"I will be SHOCKED if a single person on my tribe votes against one of my own," he decrees.

And - of course - EVERY member of his tribe (except for Shamwow of course - who appears to be in an entirely separate time and space continuum) not only votes for one of his own...they all vote for HIM, and his world absolutely implodes in front of our eyes.

Pure, perfect, unadulterated satisfaction. All is well again with my world...

...and then my phone rings.

I pick it up, and before I have a chance to even say "hello," the whiny, loud voice on the other end moans, "IS YOUR DOG ALLLLL RIIIIGHT?!"

I, of course, immediately know who it is, but am reveling in the blindsided boot to Eric...I have to have a little fun, "Hmm, who might this be?"

I sense instant irritation, as if my world should be revolving around my evil neighbors' every whim. "It's your neighbor behind you, is your dog alllllllriiiiiight?!"

I suspect why she's calling; my sister is over and her dog is in the back yard, currently barking to be let in...is it possible my evil neighbor actually has the gall to call and complain about a dog barking for a couple minutes when her dogs have barked for 16 hours a day for the past 7 years?

This could be fun...

"He's fine, why?"

"Are you sure he's all right?"

"Yup."

"I'm hearing a lot of barking..."

"Hmm...I hadn't noticed," I innocently replied.

"It's a LOT of barking, it needs to stop," she spat.

"Well, " I began, winding up and preparing to let one go, "my sister's dog is here right now...but I haven't noticed any barking even remotely on the same scale as your dogs do every day from morning to night..."

Silence.

"I know my dogs bark," the now defensive, defeated and extremely put-out voice responded. She took a breath and then in the whiniest tone possible, went for the passive-aggressive hail mary: "I was just checking to make sure your dog was allllllllllriiiiiight."

Sure you were. Touche.

Or, perhaps more appropriately: douche.

I hung up with a smile on my face. Survivor was fantastic again. My evil neighbor had shamed and embarrassed herself again. All was right with the world...again.

Oh, wait...what's that - something outside my window? There's a...river coursing through my backyard...

Shit.

I dream of a vacant lot behind me...

PB