Talk of the town

When I was a kid, our house was located near a rather large apartment complex. I remember my mom wasn't jazzed when kids from the apartments would venture out into our neighborhood.

She'd watch them walk down our street with her arms folded across her chest and an eyebrow cocked with suspicion. Perhaps she thought they were going to clean the bikes out of our garage, beat up my little brother or teach us all dirty jokes.

After my divorce, I moved from a single-family house into a townhouse rental in a nice neighborhood. My townhouse is one of a few on the cul de sac -- the rest are single family residences. My mom's bias toward the apartment kids makes me wonder and worry a bit if my neighbors have the same concern about my family.

I'm not dumb, I get it. Most rental properties are full of transient people. The single family folks see many people come and go -- and they're not all wonderful, upstanding citizens like me.

So, since moving in, I've tried to demonstrate that I'm "good people." I keep my yard neat and tidy. I planted pretty flowers in the planters that were once full of weeds and cigarette butts and I've instructed the kids to address neighbors by "Mr." and "Mrs.", not by first names. And, I ALWAYS give a friendly wave when I see one of my neighbors.

Despite my best efforts, I've got a couple of neighbors who refuse to acknowledge me. I wave and they turn their heads, if they look up at all. Maybe they think they're better than me. Maybe the women think I'm going to try to steal their husbands. Maybe they think they'll turn to stone if they look directly in my eyes - I don't know. But either way, it pisses me off.

So, for the past 2 years, I've just kept my friendly "howdy, neighbor" attitude and have tried to not let it bother me too much.

Luckily, despite my concerns the girls have made friends with a couple of neighborhood girls who live across the street. One Saturday, they asked if they could all sleep over at my house. It was fine with me, but I wondered if these girls' parents, who do wave to me, but ONLY if I do it first, would be okay with it.

At any rate, I walked across the cul de sac to have a chat with the other parents. One dad didn't bother to roll out from under his truck to make eye contact with me. He grunted a, "yeah, sure," and kept on working.

The other parent, a mom, greeted me warmly and gave her permission for the sleepover. Then, as I began to turn and leave, she stepped out on the porch.

"So, I heard your son was at that daycare where they had that measles case - was that scary? Oh, and I hear congratulations are in order - I heard you're engaged!"

The longer we chatted, the more I realized she knew more about me than I thought she did. Here I thought I was invisible on my street, when apparently, the neighborhood gossips are all a twitter over my goings-on.

Kinda makes me want to give them something juicier to work with. Maybe I should take up nude sunbathing or trade in my minivan for a sassy, red sportscar. I could ask various friends and family members to rotate leaving their cars in my driveway overnight, making it appear that I have a new "visitor" every other night.

I could have some serious fun with this.