Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood
In your neighborhood
In your neighborhood.
Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood,
The people that you meet each day.

Due to the power outage, the death and the house fire, we interacted with more neighbors than usual this past week. We learned the good, the bad and the ugly.

I know you're not all that interested in the good, and the bad will just make you sad -- so let's skip right to the ugly.

We live on a shortened block because our street ends at the park on one end and the subdivision through street on the other. We've gotten to know the four families on our street in the year since we've lived here, but since they're the "good" we're not going to discuss them today.

Let's get right to the ugliness: neighors watching the fire.

At the end of the street, as I mentioned, my elderly blind neighbor passed away Thursday morning. Next to her, around the corner, is the house that caught fire on Friday when the power came back. I've spoken to the woman who lives in the burnt house on a few occasions; she takes a walk in the park with the lady with no eyebrows who lives across the street from her, so she passes my house on the way. She seems nice, verging on AARP membership, unremarkable. I never met anyone else from the house, but her husband and her son live there, too.

When the house caught fire, my next door neighbor, her teen aged daughters (Ubergirl Babysitters) and DILF were helping with the animals, bringing water, etc. Another neighbor, who I haven't spoken to much, was looking on. As he's getting in his van, I said, "God, how many weird things can happen in this neighborhood?" And he said, "Yeah, really."

"Of course," he added, leaning in toward me confidentially, "You know he was a child molester, right?"

"No!" I said, shocked. My next door neighbor had described him as an "odd duck, Vietnam Veteran" who locks you into conversation and won't let go. But not evil.

"Yeah," he continued, "He used to sit and take pictures of the little girls on the way to school. And, do you know the (Blanks) in the blue house across the street? They said he was taking pictures of their daughters through the windows, and of them in their bedroom!"

"I didn't see that on the sex offender list," I said.

"Oh, they didn't call the police," he said, "I'll talk to ya later. I gotta go." He got into his van with a big W '04 sticker in the back window, and drove away.

I thought to myself, if some pervert were looking in the Ubergirls' bedrooms (which would require a ladder; and the Blanks have the same model as we do), DILF would either call the police, chase the offender down the street with a baseball bat, or likely both. They didn't call the police? That raised red flags right away.

So I mention this story to my next door neighbor. "What??!! No! Who told you that?" she asked. "I never even saw him with a camera."

I tell her: the Blanks told guy X over on street Y. She looks disgusted, then says, "The Blank guy is the same guy who said, 'Good riddance' as the (XFamily) boy lay dying on the side of the road from a head injury."

More shock on my face. She added, "(XBoy) did get in some trouble, but he was just a kid. And he was dying. That Blank guy's a piece of work."

Meanwhile, the nice mom of The Boy Who Dressed As A Fireman/Dalmation on Halloween and Plays with Ubergirls in the Park (yeah, he's got a long name), asked me what happened with the fire. I told her: A power surge caused a fire in the garage when the power came back on.

She relayed this info to her next door neighbor Tim, who was hosting Ubergirl Elder at his home while she played with his daughter at his house when the fire broke out. While she was reporting, the van driver's wife ran over to them, yelling, "Oh, no. That's not what happened! They had a meth lab in their garage!"

Tim looked at her and said, "Yeah. Well. I better go clean out my fridge."

"Yeah," said nice mom, "Me too."

Nice mom has always made an effort to talk to me and make friends, and now I know why. She's living in a barracuda tank with those neighbors of hers. Her husband is named Jan and speaks with a foreign accent, so I'm sure they aren't treated very nicely by anyone besides Tim.

Remind me to invite her over for coffee some day.