My Neighbors, They Are No Longer My Neighbors.

If you read my blog at all this summer, you might possibly remember some posts I penned about “My Crazy Neighbors” next door.  They finally got evicted.  My heart goes out to the landlord who amongst other things now has to fix the broken glass door, rid the house of the marijuana smell, and dispose of the worthless garbage they left in our alley behind the house.

 

I wanted to have some impact on them because they knew we were all Christians over here, but we were super nice to them and prayed for them a lot, so who knows what God could have done.  Honestly though, I will not miss the pot/cigarette smoke that lofted into our bedroom.  I will also not miss the noise.  Every night it was either fighting or lovemaking, and both events would be overly dramatized and obscenely loud.

 

So farewell my crazy neighbors, and I hope God does something to change your lifestyles.

It’s more fun on this side of the alley.

“Well then what ARE you smoking?”

This may or may not be the last in my unofficial mini-series on my crazy neighbors.  Tonight I was sitting outside on my porch, enjoying some pipe time with my Calculus book and graphing calculator.  Cassie, the nighbor you’ve all heard so much about recently, yells a friendly hello from her porch to mine.  I had, in faith, let them borrow my old set of poker chips, which they returned this morning.  Cassie had found another chip of mine later in the day, and told me to come over and get it.  I, with my pipe in mouth, stroll down the stairs and over to their very trashed yard to meet her at the bottom of the stairs up to their loft.  We talk for a bit, and then suddenly she says

“Are you smoking weed?”

She said it in a way as if to say “I really didn’t think you smoked weed and I’m kind of disappointed that you do.”

I respond simply, “Nope”  She pauses for a little while.

“Well then what ARE you smoking?” She says.  It was an entirely honest question, like she really couldn’t imagine what else I could possibly be smoking.  To picture better in your mind the situation, imagine a strage puppy looking you square in the eye, cocking its cute little puppy head, and saying “Well then what ARE you smoking?”.  Like “Oh my gosh, what else is there in this world besides weed?”

So I proudly say that I’m only smoking good old American pipe tobacco, and that I don’t smoke weed. Ever.  She says she doesn’t know anyone else who smokes pipe tobacco in a pipe.

 

So no huge moral here, no prayer request.  Just curiosity as to how my generation’s gotten so far away from righteousness.

My neighbors. They are violent neighbors too.

Last night I awoke to the sound of a breaking window and a lot of yelling next door.  I looked out the window just in time to see a man in blue book it from the neighbor’s front porch into someone’s car before they sped off.  Cops came over soon after, and eventually everything was quiet again.  Later that night I heard one of the women from next door on the phone yelling, apparently to the man who broke the window and peaced out.  She was telling him how he scared her when he was that drunk, and how it reminded her of her ex-husband.  He kept hanging up from the sound of it, and she yelled at him again and again for being so drunk.  I’m honestly not a creeper and was certainly not eavesdropping, just their window is right outside mine, so I could not help but to hear every word.

 

I have been burdened about this all day.  Pray with me for my neighbors and their salvation.  They are such nice people when they’re not totally smashed.  I know that sounds ridiculous to say, but if college has taught me anything I care to remember, it’s that people aren’t “drunks” or “stoners” or “meth-heads”.  People like that are STILL the precious children of Almighty God.  I still love them, and there is no question as to how much God still loves them.  They are not their addictions.  I’m believing God for their salvation.

My neighbors. They are crazy neighbors.

So as you probably know, I live in a college town.  And I live in the middle of it.  Right by the school.  The house next door has two parts, an upstairs and a downstairs.  Downstairs lives a nice Mexican family with maybe five members.  They have a couple of riced-out Hondas behind the house in the alley, and a foosball table in the backyard next to a giant set of antlers someone somewhere scored with a 30.06 once.   They are pretty great and normal.  No yelling, not too much drinking, and very little communication with the kind folks in my house.

 

The people who live upstairs are different.  They are very loud and very friendly.  Today I was offered beer, a round of poker, and a tattoo when I kindly returned an empty pack of cigarettes one of them threw in my yard during the course of the day.  I had talked with them before, and they all knew me by name.  I figured I could bring it to em and toss out a nonchalant “Not cool guys” and get away with it.  I got away with it alright, but I had to turn down a beer, a tattoo, and a game of schwasted poker before I could leave to play frisbee with the boys.

 

I’m praying for them.  They’re really nice people.  I think there’s like three guys and three girls living there.  The only name I remember from the lot of them is Cassie.  So toss up a prayer for them team.