Because Some Wackos are the People in My Neighborhood

Thirteen years. It's a long time to dislike where you live. To never quite feel like a part of the community. To not be able to join in the conversation because so few people speak either one of your two (okay, one-and-a-half) spoken languages. To share a driveway with a psychotic man who has never so much as uttered "hello" the entire 13 years. And whose discarded cigarette butts flickered across my drive and lawn greet me each morning. Thirteen years is long enough to get out of this hell hole!

A Brief History Lesson on Shantytown

The neighborhood is old but not charming-old, run down and depressing. A few years back we had an Asian beetle infestation and the city came and cut down almost every tree on our block, leaving it even more barren and desolate-looking, the houses shabbier. I took to calling this place "Shantytown". I mean, people use old rusted garage doors as fences in their backyards - not the kind of place you'd be proud to invite your friends over to visit. It's just a couple of notches up from the slums, if you ask me.

I'm not trying to mock poverty or anything. The people here are not poor - in fact, I know some of them are actually quite well off. They're just, shall we say, very frugal. Many are retired and just don't see the point in spending good money on things like fences or patio furniture when they can recycle old doors and hang out in their garages to peer at passerby.

And peer they certainly do. It still baffles my mind that 13 years later I can't drive (or certainly walk) down my street without several pairs of eyes blatantly staring me down as I drive past. It is seriously to the point where I fear the bolder ones will jump into the passenger seat, they get that close to the car. It's unnerving, I tell you!

So, how did I end up here? 

After enjoying a number of years as a single urban girl in the big city, I met a guy at the trendy downtown loft office where we both worked. We fell in love, and after a whirlwind 9-month courtship got engaged during happy hour in a New Orleans bar. True story. Anywho, I moved from my tiny basement apartment in Toronto to a sprawling semi-detached home just north of the city. Although secretly horrified by the neighborhood's left-in-the-70's appearance, I convinced myself it would be okay. We were still in the 416 area code. I wasn't an official suburbanite. On a good day I could be in the city in like, 15 minutes.

Little did I know how quickly my soul would start to wither away!

Yes, the house needed some TLC. I tried to ignore the parquet floors, stuccoed ceilings and hideous fixtures all installed in 1972. We couldn't fix everything all at once. Over the years, we chipped away and actually did a decent job renovating the place.  But with every new thing we fixed, we stuck out like sore thumbs in our largely senior-citizen-populated neighborhood. Why are you painting your garage a different color than the house next door? Why don't you leave the railing white, like everyone else has? they'd ask us. Tony would answer patiently in his mother tongue while I tried to control my inner rage. Really? Was it any of their business?

To deal with my dislike of some of the neighbors, I started giving them nicknames. For instance, the biggest neighborhood gossip is known as "The Crazy Sweeper". She sweeps her driveway several times a day with such vigor that no leaves, grass or specs of dirt stand a chance. She's equally as fastidious in the winter. No snow shall sully her drive, even if she has to spend all day battling it out with her shovel. The craziest thing is - neither she nor her husband drives anymore.

The phenomenon seems to be spreading (or sweeping the neighborhood, if you will!). "Crazier Sweeper", just a few doors down from the original Sweeper, has also taken to obsessively cleaning her driveway and the surrounding sidewalk. It's slightly more impressive, as she sweeps while chain-smoking and screaming "Paul John!" at her kid every 30 seconds. Her secondary nickname is "Insane Mullet Lady", for self-explanatory reasons.

Jack, or as I call him, "Jackass" lives across the street and is in the construction business. How do I know this, never having had a conversation with him? Well, my first clue was when he used this massive cherry picker machine to put up his Christmas lights. It's quite the production. It's not like it's such a huge house that he needs this contraption. Everyone else manages just fine with a ladder. But Jack likes to put on a show and even lets his kids go up in the machine. One time it scared the crap out of me, because they were like 10 feet away from my living room, looking right inside my balcony window.

 And then there are the fireworks!

For some reason the residents of Shantytown like to shoot off fireworks every couple of weeks or so, and not just on holidays. I'm not just talking a couple of kids with sparklers. No, there's a full-blown Magical World of  Disney type show going on on a regular basis (obviously without all the nice palaces and such). I've never figured out what the occasions are - they always vary and seem pretty random.  At first it was pretty cool - I could just open up my balcony curtains, pop some popcorn and enjoy the show, but after a while the novelty wore off and it doesn't help that they tend to start this spectacles late at night when we're trying to sleep.

Picture this over a much more ghetto type neighborhood!

There are many other reasons why I'm happy to be leaving this place, including a recent visit to a house down the street from the SWAT team, as if that's not reason enough. But, deep down inside there are also things and people I'll miss. Like Chicken Man, the neighbor who left us a funny surprise in our backyard a few years back. And also? I'll be a little sad to leave the first place my little boy called home. The place where we brought him after leaving the hospital when he was born. Where he learned to smile and laugh, took his first steps, and learned his first words. But on the other hand, he's already cussing in Italian, so now's probably a good time to leave...

Ciaran's first day home

A Truly Absurd Mystery Involving a Smuggled Chicken

A couple of years after we were married, long before the whole urban farmer thing became popular, we had a very unexpected visit from a chicken. Yes, that's right - a chicken.

I don't remember what day, month or even year it was, but I will never forget that strange afternoon when my husband called me into the backyard. It must have been spring, because there was no snow on the ground, but the trees had not yet fully bloomed and the grass was still that dirty shade of brown.

"Come here," he said, gesturing towards the back door. I vaguely recall getting frustrated because there I was slaving away in the kitchen and he wouldn't tell me why I should follow him. Finally I relented, but he still wouldn't explain what was going on.

"Look," he said, pointing at something on the ground in the distance. "I found it back here while I was putting away tools in the shed. Someone even blocked off either side of the shed and left it a bowl of water!"

A low, rustling sound from about 20 feet away finally drew my attention to "it". And it was not happy. It came running towards us, causing me to shriek in a way that's normally reserved for mouse sightings. I ran to the gate at the side of the house, the chicken at my heels, pecking and clucking. Luckily, we just made it to the other side of the gate & slammed it closed before It took a chunk out of my flesh.

After debating on what to feed this obviously starving creature, we went back inside and grabbed some bread, which I proceeded to hurl out the washroom window into the back yard, rather than risk being attacked by the crazed animal. Understandably, it seemed to settle down a bit after chowing down on its high-carb snack.

Then, we went off to find whoever was responsible for this seemingly practical joke. We called Tony's parents first. They live on a farm, so it was the most logical place to start. Had they finally snapped after living so isolated up there in the country? But, no, they were just as baffled as we were.

We knocked on doors. People gave us strange looks. No one had seen anyone sneaking a chicken into our backyard. I spotted a family down the street smiling at us and became immediately suspicious. Were they the culprits? No, they were not. To this day, they avoid me like the plague. And honestly, I can't blame them. What kind of madwoman goes around accusing people of smuggling chickens into her yard?

We called every one of our friends; if anyone was going to play a practical joke, it would have been more likely one of them, not a neighbor we barely knew. (Too bad I hadn't thought of that earlier). But, no, the friends all plead innocent. (We did of course, get a few inviting themselves over for a fresh poultry dinner).

The next day we got up and peered out the window to see if the chicken was still there. It was. I threw more bread outside and we went to work. When we came back home, there it was scratching in the dirt and pecking at the grass.

We couldn't keep ignoring it. I mean, how long could you keep a farm animal in the city? Surely it wasn't even legal. I decided to carefully open the side gate & set it free. No, Tony said. It would probably get hit by a car and then, wouldn't I feel guilty?

At that moment, someone knocked on the door. I heard Tony speaking to our next door neighbor's son-in-law, who had recently moved in with his family. He'd been away for the past couple of days and had "found" this chicken in the park. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I've never once in my life seen livestock wandering around the local park.

It seems he didn't want his wife's elderly mother freaking out over his stashing a chicken in her backyard, nibbling away at her veggie garden, so he decided to put it in ours, but forgot to tell us. The chicken was of no use to him, he said, explaining that it was a "layer" and couldn't be eaten. So, if Tony's parents wanted, they could have this one. They came the next day to pick it up.

That's how our house became the livestock trading headquarters for the neighborhood. I come home to find rabbit cages lined up in front of the garage door, dropped off by neighbors for my in-laws. They make deals during the day for rabbits, chickens and turkeys. Just the other day I got a phone call from a lady asking for a rabbit. Sorry, I told her, he can't come to the phone. I don't think she got it, but I laughed myself hysterical.

Happy Friday Funny all! Don't forget to link up your funny story, video or email over at Crazy Town.