Or at least that's what our neighbor would have you think.
See, Halloween is our holiday. My hubby, J, and I do Halloween like other people do Christmas. We go all out. Our yard is a month and a half long tribute to the macabre - cheesy and sometimes gory macabre. We have a graveyard with a gallows, skulls on spikes, a tree with eyeballs, and the Mystery Machine along with zombified Scooby and the gang. Our yard is pretty badass. Seriously.
Look:
See? Badass. This isn't even close to all the stuff we have. There's more. Lots more. And it will be up soon. Because awesome. J has made most of this. Probably 90%. And let's be honest - we're damn proud of our yard. We have people stopping all the time to take pictures. We have friends and neighbors telling their friends to come and see our display.
But our neighbor across the street? Yeeeaaaaahhhhhhh, not so much. We'll call them R and his wife B. Now, R has never had an issue with the display. He's even complemented us on it. But B. . . that's another story. She's not a fan.
She's also a bitch. No, really. A package for her was delivered to my house. So I did what anyone would do, I kept it. No. Joking. I took it over to her house, rang the doorbell so I could give it to her. You would have thought I was the devil incarnate coming to rouse her from her slumber. She was rude, unappreciative, and stared at me like I was an idiot. Fine. Next time I will keep your damn package!!
So anyway, last night my doorbell rings. J was helping our son with some boy scout stuff at the table so I answered the door. There stands B, in tears. I was a bit dumb founded. It was butt ass cold and she asked if she could come in. Uh, suuuuure. She starts by waving her hands in front of her face (like she's fanning herself) because she's so "emotional" that she needs a moment to collect herself. She proceeds to describe how our yard is terrifying her children, that they can't even go outside, that they have nightmares every night and scream and have to sleep with her and R every night. She understands that we like Halloween or whatever, but if we could please take down the display or at least move it to the backyard because, from one mother to another, the terror needs to stop.
Um, what? Wait, weren't your kids just playing outside 2 days ago? For hours? Without looking traumatized at all? Yeah, they were. I was good though. I was nice. I nodded where I thought I should nod and tried not to blurt out everything I was thinking (for example, she said her children scream that Scooby is going to eat them. My thought? Scooby just wants his Scooby snacks. It's not my fault those snacks happen to be the dismembered limbs of his victims). I told her that J and I would talk about it but not to expect anything. She thanked me, still crying and then hugged me. You don't just hug me. You don't. No. But I didn't cringe, I didn't shove her into the door repeatedly.
J was listening the whole time and told me he was waiting for me to go off on her. I was proud I didn't! We talked about it, joked about it, posted it on facebook for all our friends to marvel over. And marvel they did! The consensus was that she should chill the fuck out.
Because here's the thing. Our yard? Really isn't scaring her kids. She doesn't agree with our display. She thinks it's vulgar and evil and bad. And that's what she's telling her kids. J talked to R today. He kept saying how B wants to keep the kids sheltered, how B doesn't want them to be exposed to something so bad. So J said, "so basically you guys are villainizing us and making your kids think that we're bad people." No! Of course not! Actually? You are. R made it known that this was all B - she doesn't approve. She even went to our other neighbors (ones that we know pretty well) and asked if they would approach us about it or would help her start a petition to have the display taken down. But, sadly for her, these neighbors like us and love our display. As do most people.
So now, for them at least, we're the asshole neighbors. I'll be honest - I hope B approaches me again about this - because I won't be so nice this time. Especially after learning about the petition. And our display? Staying up. And hey - we still have a ton more to add!! And add we will!!
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