Reason #17 not to be a douchey neighbor: chances are that
one of your neighbors has a blog and will talk smack about you on the Internet.
I will never confront our neighbors about this. It’s really
not that big of a deal, and not really all that douchey – certainly nothing to start a conflict over. But a
blog is a vehicle for a blogger to express whatever is on her mind, and today
what’s on my mind is why our neighbors leave their Halloween pumpkins on their
porch for six months.
Seriously… Six. Months.
I took this photo of my neighbor’s house last week, March 20th,
the first day of spring. And, yes, I took it from my kitchen window. (No, I’m
not usually a Gladys Kravitz,
but c’mon. I've had to look at these pumpkins for six months, people. And if you don’t know who Gladys Kravitz is,
that’s just more proof that I am old
and you are not.)
Note the pumpkins that are sitting on the porch. They have
been sitting in that very spot since the beginning of October, and it is now
nearing the end of March.
These same neighbors put up their Christmas lights sometime after
Thanksgiving. One would think that when the Christmas lights go up, the
Halloween pumpkins should go away, right? Apparently not. In early
January, they took their Christmas lights down. Great. I love it when the Christmas
lights come down in a timely manner. Again, this did not seem to be a signal to
our neighbors that perhaps it was time for the pumpkins to go.
While it bugs me when people leave their Christmas lights up
for months, I understand that it’s a huge pain in the ass to take them down.
You have get out the ladder, crawl around on the roof in the cold, and the roof
could be wet or icy. It’s not a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I get
it.
But getting rid of Halloween pumpkins does not require that much
effort. On garbage pick-up day, a truck comes by that scoops up everyone’s lawn
clippings, tree trimmings and other natural debris, including Halloween pumpkins and
Christmas trees. So we just have to pick up our pumpkins, carry them to the
curb in front of the house, and leave them there. Done. The whole thing takes sixty seconds.
So if the city makes it that stinkin’ easy, why are the
pumpkins still sitting there? Our neighbors don’t leave their Christmas lights
up, and they’re always outside working on their landscaping. Wouldn’t Halloween
pumpkin removal be part of that process? I don’t understand.
I had a theory that maybe these were fake pumpkins. I mean,
how are they not smelly, rotting heaps of black goo by now? I became
convinced that the pumpkins were fake a couple months ago when they had
their garage door open as I drove by. One whole wall of their garage is lined
with four rows of shelves. Want to know what’s taking up every inch of
space on those shelves? PUMPKINS!
Yes, like a hundred bright orange pumpkins take up an entire wall of their
garage. What the hizzle?
Okay, so these people really like their pumpkins. So much
so, that they want to have fake ones on their porch all year long… and fill
their garage with them. Um… okaaaaay….
Then, by some odd coincidence, the very next day after I
took the above photo, they removed the pumpkins from their front porch and put
them out to the curb for garbage pick-up. WHAT??
So the pumpkins aren’t fake?
Those are real pumpkins that have
been sitting on their porch for six months?!
Ew. That’s so nasty.
Here’s a photo of the pumpkins by the curb on March 21st.
(One should also note that March 21st was a Wednesday, and our
garbage pick-up is on Tuesdays, so these nasty pumpkins have been sitting on
the side of the road, directly across from my house, for a week. Lovely.)
I was tempted to go gently poke one just to see if it would
collapse into a rotting mess before my eyes, but the germaphobic side of me won out over the nosy side.
So now, I’m really baffled. Does that mean that all those
pumpkins in their garage are also real? What does one couple need with a
hundred real pumpkins? Why would they let the pumpkins sit, rotting and
molding, in their garage and on their front porch for half a year?
Okay, gumshoes, help me out. I’d love to hear your theories.
And yes, it’s okay to have a theory that I shouldn’t be so nosy. I agree with
you.
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| photo credit |
