When we moved into our new house we were excited to meet our neighbors. We had actually met one when we were looking at the house. We hadn't signed any contracts or made any offers yet. Ned (that is his actual name, I'm not making anything up to conceal his identity) came out and said "Hi, are you buying the place?" Straight shooter, that could be good. In the next breath he added "because that lawn really needs to be mowed." Alrighty then. The neighbor on the other side of us was a little more obscure. We would see him leave for work in the morning and come home from work in the evening. We realized when he was grilling for one that he was single. Then he started having things to do in his backyard the same time we were working/playing out in ours. Bill has always commented on how weird it is that in the Midwest nobody has fences. He introduced himself (and here I am going to conceal his real name) and his appearance just struck me as so familiar. That's right, he is a carbon copy of good ol' Kip. Except he has a full goatee not just the mustache.
Around our house he is known as Kip. We do use his real name when we talk to him. We live in an older neighborhood and when we moved in we saw that we needed to cut down two trees in the front yard that were dying and dead. One of them we weren't sure if it was in our yard or Kip's. We spoke with him about it and he showed interest in participating. The day came and my parents came over to help. Bill and my Dad were out calculating and prepping for the trees to come down. This made much commotion on our block. Kip and other neighbors came out to watch. After the trees were down everyone chipped in to help clean up all the branches. As Bill and my Dad were driving a load of wood away my Dad rolls down his window and yells "Thanks Kip!"
Bill relayed a conversation he had with Kip about Transformers. I guess he was able to make tons of money on Ebay from his old Optimus Prime and Megatron. One day in the summer we were walking by and he had his front door open and windows open. I was startled at what I saw and quietly motioned Bill to take a look.
That's right. A life-sized replica of a frozen Hans Solo. I don't really know why anyone would want to have one of these, but it must fill a need. He is a great guy and a quiet, friendly neighbor. What more could you ask for?
3 comments:
It's 8am on a Saturday and all the house is silent and still, but I can't help myself--I have been laughing out loud with this entire post. Good times. Thanks Erin. And thank your dad too, cuz my favorite part was that he gave a shout-out to his trusty sidekick named Kip. :)
So, did you actually go to his house to take the picture, or did you get it from somewhere else?
I really thought that when you looked inside and were shocked that you were going to say you saw him naked, so the frozen Hans Solo--as strange as it may be--was actually a relief. I think I may have been biased by our own experience with naked neighbors. Hey! I think Bill got an eyeful of those while he was staying with us that summer. Tee Hee. I had forgotten!
Neigbors...you have to live with em and you can't choose em.
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