Dear Laura

What it would be like to read a letter from a neighbor about myself

Dear Laura,

I would have told you what I thought of your next door neighbor, Janyce, yesterday but since we were on your back deck, I couldn’t. She stays upstairs typing erotic trash with her window open. I don’t think she heard you mention that her house smelled like a meth lab but in all actuality, I think it is all those damn cats. Her whole backyard is a sandbox.

 

Doesn’t she know we can all smell her house? I mean! It’s bad enough that she lets that hippie son of hers play guitar in the garage, allowing his band to practice in there three times a week with all those groupies. They only know three songs and they play those same three songs over and over again. I even think those musicians are using the backyard the same way the cats are.

 

Can’t she give the neighborhood a break? The band plays those three songs from the time school lets out until the next morning on weekends. What kind of music is that anyway? My sister says it is classic-country-metal-folkthrash.

 

Isn’t she supposed to be a teacher? Do teachers today allow teenage boys to go to their house and party all night? I know her son has a lot of friends, but some control should be enforced. Last Saturday, some guy was drunk and instead of backing out onto the street, he backed into my front yard, almost killing my dog. The dog couldn’t move out of the way because he was doing the same thing in our yard that the cats and the musicians do across the street in their back yard.

 

Janyce should be reported to the police! What does she do in that house all night with those teenage boys anyway? I guess that is better left unanswered.

 

I heard her complain for years about all the men she dated and married. She told me they were all drunks. Well…that’s what you get, working in a bar on the weekends. So, she fell in love with guys she already knew to be shiftless drunks and then, she divorced them because they didn’t come home at night because they were hanging out in some bar drinking. What did she expect?

 

Oh, dear God! I can see her out my window. She is dressed in black and her hair is spray painted green and purple. She is wearing black leather pants, high- heeled boots, and leather gloves with the fingers cut off and it’s August! She has so much eye makeup on that I can see her eyes clearly, from across the street.

 

There are two guys with her and they are holding hands. They are not holding Janyce’s hand; the boys are holding each other’s hand. Oh dear, one kissed the other on the cheek.

 

I don’t like the company she keeps at all. Isn’t there something we can do about her? Oh no! One of the guys is pulling out a marijuana cigarette. And she’s a teacher? I ‘m calling the police.

 

Maybe she will be in jail before our husbands return from the porno shoot, at the Sturgis biker rally.

Reviews

[Vonnette]

This is so funny! I think this is what my neighbors were thinking as they watched my house as my kids were growing up. It was like watching a zoo. An out of control zoo. Now I wonder what was going on over there. I was too busy trying to do damage control to think about it. (No Mariam, my son isn't touched in the head or suicidal. He just thinks sitting on the roof is interesting, and he likes the perspective). This really put a smile on my face. thank you!

[Albert Freeman]

I'm allowed to laugh right, because this is hysterical to read. Your writing has inspired me to write short stories. I think you have some of the most laugh out loud writing I've ever read.

[Blackbirdsong]

LMAO I can tell you had a lot of fun writing this and it shows in every word. Sounds like you have some real busy-body neighbors. We used to have some like that in the city. I swear this one lady used to run through her house to watch me. I don't know what I was doing that was so exciting, but perhaps for some, watching a teenage girl put garbage bags on the lawn is the height of their day. :)