Our Quirky Neighbors, Part I

First off, I will totally own that our neighbors might possibly think that we, too, are crazy quirky.  That's ok.  And I am using the word 'crazy' 'quirky' here in the most endearing way possible.  Kind of.


Hubby and I are like magnets for  crazy quirky  neighbors.  I'm convinced of it.  It as if, when we tied the knot that fateful day, the heavens opened up and said "thou shalt be blessed with beautiful children and  crazy quirky  neighbors.  Amen."  Thank you, oh Lord, for both.


It started in our bass-ackwards first neighborhood in the OKC.  Our landlord had put lipstick on a pig, a pig in which we had to hang plastic to keep warm in the winter and roach-bomb multiple times.  We lived across the street from an apartment building spray-painted in shiny black paint.  Attractive.


A young ex-con kid would perch up in the window like a gargoyle, and told me one day he routinely watched me walk the dogs, and that he had served time for check forgery.  Another neighbor would spend ours dancing in the median with a paper bag of alcohol in hand.


One time, Hubby was walking the dogs at night (we had no back yard).  He was approached by a cop car (which would routinely canvas the neighborhood - I wonder why.)
Cop to hubby:  "Do you live around here?"
Hubby:  "Yes."
Cop:  "You need to get bigger dogs."


We moved out before our contract was up.


Our beloved house in OKC was in an urban preservation area, attractive and well kept.  There, we had some truly great neighbors.  They looked out for us and were kind and friendly.


But with every yin comes yang.


There was our next-door neighbor who was dating a stripper who was selling drugs out of his house by day, and coming home at 3 AM followed by other angry men yelling about her being pregnant.  One the other side, a reclusive university professor who wouldn't answer her door when we rang.


Catty-corner from us, an elderly man owned the house but used it as storage for strange things and it was rumored that parts of the house didn't have a floor.  Occasionally he would let his blonde-hair-slightly-coked-out-looking "sister" live there, who would come pilfer water from the spicket on our house because their water had been turned off.


Then there were the 'hippies' as we called them, basically squatting in the house on the end of the street which had been abandoned and I can confirm that most of it didn't have a floor.  They road their bicycles everywhere and were probably growing pot.


The stories could go on and on...  and will, in Part II because the saga continued in Richmond!!