I am Your Nosy Neighbor

I will flat out admit it; I am nosy.  I like to know what's going on and I hate surprises.  It's more fun to be in-the-know than out as I like to be a part of the surprise than the surprised.

With that said.

I enjoy taking my fiancé and I's dog for daily walks.  I try to get him into the habit of going on a little 15-30 minute walk with the intentions of daily but more likely it occurs 3-4 days out of the week.  Short of it down pouring, I will take him through the neighborhood.  The dog loves it.  We feel bad that at almost four years old we still have to crate him but he gets depressed when we leave him out alone and we end up finding him drunk upon returning home (long story but lesson learned - don't leave re-corked bottles of wine out for the dog to steal and drink).  I preface that we're going on strolls so the dog could get his exercise but really, I mostly enjoy these walks because I get to peer into our neighbor's lives.  I especially love going on walks when it's kind of dusky out and people have their lights on.  Then I can see how they decorate their homes.  Hi, I am your nosy neighbor.

I also like to see who has their house on the market and for how long.  And I might or might not check out your home on the real estate websites (seriously the one house down the street that has been on the market for about a year - you would sell your home in a heart beat if you would get rid of those UGLY hand painted murals that seem to follow in every.single.room.  No one likes that but you).  I call it research but I think my fiancé knows I particularly like to see how people fashion their home and their walls.  I like to know if they have all the fancy upgrades or if they kept all the traditional builder shit that this house came equipped with.

I get a huge kick out of open garage doors.  My favorite is when they're filled to the brim with crap and my neighbor cannot even park their car in the garage.  I'm sorry but what's the point of a garage if you can't even use it?  It's not a storage center; the point of a garage is to have a home for your car to sleep or to protect it from baseball-sized hail (which for some freaky ass reason we have had at least twice this year alone).

But what REALLY gets me are the college students who live down the street.  They have parties almost every weekend or they invite their friends over to pre-drink before going out.  And that's cool, I will take a social neighbor over a weird, creepy one any day, but what I don't get is why every single friend feels compelled to drive over in their own car, which then takes up all the available parking spaces on our street.  Don't get me wrong, we have tons of parking here which I love and normally on the weekends I park my car in the driveway (my fiancé parks his car in the garage because he understands the point of a garage is to keep your car there!) but occasionally my fiancé will be out and about and I don't like blocking the driveway when he's not home so I'll park on the street (I'm nice like that but then again we'll see how it is when we've been married for a couple of years).  Problem is that if it's a Saturday night, more than likely our college neighbors (who really live about 3-4 town houses down from us) will be having friends over and they will take up all the available parking.  And then I'm left to park my car in rape vicinity.  I vented my frustration about this to my fiancé about a week ago.

"What is rape vicinity and why do you even say that?  We live in a really nice and SAFE neighborhood."
"Rape vicinity is when my car is parked far enough away that if someone wanted to attack me very early in the morning, no one would be able to hear my screams."
"With how loudly you talk, I highly doubt no one would hear you."

And I will confess, I am overreacting but I am from a very urban and part part of New Jersey and I am always on my guard.  I don't trust no one and I am always looking over my shoulder.  When I run at the lake next to our house, I have started to find myself psyching myself out so I run faster because I make myself believe there is a crazy person high on bath salts waiting for the right moment to go all face-eating crazy on me.  We live in a very safe neighborhood with two cops living in our same stretch of town homes (one is our next-door neighbor).  Even the area outside of our neighborhood is nice.  I call it Ethni-City because it's mostly immigrants.  They flock to this side of town because housing is inexpensive, it's close to the university (most come here because they get scholarships to attend the graduate and PhD programs), and the schools are good.  My parents used to always tell me, move to where the immigrants live, they will only live in areas where the schools are good.  Because of the high ethnicity rate over here, I imagine that the schools are pretty nice.  And since this is still considered Raleigh city limits, it's like win-win.  I might be outside of the belt line but not out in the middle of nowhere which is a bonus.  I came from living in an upper-incomed downtown area and I worried that the "suburbs" would change me for the worse.  But I actually enjoy it a lot and we like this side of town.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand.  Yes, I am your nosy neighbor.  Yes I will walk by at dusk to peer into your lives, and yes I will report everything I see back to my fiancé.  And never fret, I will watch intently with my police radio app if the cops get called to your house.  Because you know, someone has to do and I would prefer that it was me.