on trolling the hobbit and loving the lawyer

a study in neighbourly extremes

I’m grateful for many things in my life.

I’m grateful for my health, loving family, safety, security and enough dough to get up tomorrow and do it again.

I’m grateful for the beautiful home we get to inhabit.

Even a seasoned troll like myself can appreciate the good things in life.

I’m especially grateful that we don’t live on a corner lot.

If we lived on a corner lot we’d only have one neighbour next door.

Here? We have two. Neighbours on both sides!

And the two of them could not be any more different.

On one side we have the lawyers.

They are kind, polite, loving people. They have a live and let live ethos.

Jimmy, it’s your house. Do what you want with your yard.

While chipping away at ice this year I told Peter that he had the best lawn on the street, the man next to him had the best shoveled driveway, and I had the best woodpile.

It was an acknowledgement that we all loved doing and took pride in different things and that this manifested in how we present ourselves to the world.

I love your woodpile Jimmy.

The neighbours on the other side of us?

They do not.

They are not the live and let live kind.

These neighbours used to delight in advising and suggesting what we do in our yard, and my wife bore the brunt of their criticisms while I was away.

They believe in being neighbourly, in continuity and in so called ‘community standards.’ They long for protective covenants and wish we had more ‘Merican style HOA.

(side note dear reader: why do people who live in the so called ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ love to cower so much behind committees and rules?)

These neighbours used to delight in advising and suggesting what we do in our yard. They spent an entire summer passively aggressively tormenting my wife while I dug a two hundred foot trench three feet deep around the outgo property.

Having largely ignored their pronouncements for years, I was slow to realize the extent of their harassment towards my wife. Once I knew just how much they were pushing my wife while I wasn’t there, the nice Jimmy that would shovel their driveway or listen to long tedious critiques of why I shouldn’t do one thing or another in my yard or with my house, my rapid decent from friendly guy to feindish troll began.

I caught them on my property photographing my shed. Others had told me that he had a reputation for trespassing on construction projects - late night visits to make sure things were being done according to code.

It was shocking to learn that I was living next door to an unsanctioned vigilante building inspector.

The photos of my shed were being taken to build yet another baseless case to send to the city. I full throated swore at them for darn near twenty minutes with a flurry of insults and observations that would make Lenny Bruce blush.

I may have channeled my inner Trailer Park Boy when I shouted: Go have second breakfast you fucking hairy toed hobbit piece of shit.

The poor man who likely hasn’t seen his penis without the aid of a mirror in many decades had the unfortunate indisgression to admit to my wife that he often enjoyed second breakfast. Judging by how he moved, I was surprised hearing that it was merely two - but I digress.

In my last encounter with him and his hag she decided to call me the scum of the earth.

When I laughed and mocked her using a parrots voice B-kawk, I’m the scum of the earth, the scum of the earth, she then continued by saying: You’re a child, a child!

Based on her tone, this chick obviously is not fond of children.

What’s worse, she didn’t realized what she was arming me with. She didn’t realize that she was dealing with a troll lacking of any shame whatsoever.

First I created a song. Whenever they were in the yard I’d sing

I’m the scum of the earth,
A child a child
Scum of the earth!
Oh what a child
Scum of the earth
Dum dum da dum earth scum!

They eventually stopped using their yard whenever I was around.

Next?

I came up with quite a collection of tires. These I stored on the property line where he typically planted spreading plants or nasty bushes that unapologetically spread and encroached on our land.

But my masterwork as a troll has got to be the chicken coop.

I’ve placed it and a compost pile directly upwind from their bedroom and kitchen.

The smell of composting horse manure and chicken shit has been placed optimally to use th prevailing winds to blow the odour directly through their backyard while sparing all of the rest of our neighbours.

Everything I’ve done here is within the letter of what is legal.

Is it pleasant?

No.

It is however within the letter of the law.

This trolling has been having a positive effect on the world.

My dad, once a little OCD about keeping things neat and tidy looks upon my creation with a sense of admiration and wonder.

Jimmy, everyone at Bushwood knows about you and your chickens up her in CraterPark. Most of them wouldn’t want to live next to you but they’re really happy that you live next to the Hobbit here.

I was quite chuffed to hear this.

Really Dad? They talk about me?

Oh sure Jimmy, They love that you’re sticking it to the Hobbit. You’re just what the doctor ordered.

The doctor, the lawyer, the financial advisor, the principal - it seems my know it all, Mr. Smarmypants neighbour has a reputation and likely hasn’t ever encountered a troll with my abilities to not give a shit.

For a long time he thought he could tell us what to do with our yard and how to live with his constant critiques and unwelcome opinions.

Now he gets to smell what my chickens leave behind to rot in the hot, humid sunshine.

But dear reader, this isn’t merely a post to rant.

Please don’t mistake this for base negativity.

This is a tale of two neighbours afterall.

My othe neighbours, the live and let live ones?

I’d do anything for them.

This evening Peter needed help. He was trying to do his sons homework for him and ran into a snag.

Peter is a lawyer.

He’s good at keeping his lawn tidy.

He’s great at making money.

He’s really great at being a dad - his kids adore him.

He’s not great with hand tools.

His son had to make a catapult for a science fair project. This task was originally contracted out to a handy nephew.

There was a crisis however. While attempting to get the projectile to cover the proper distance, Joey ended up breaking the catapult.

Jimmy, can you help? Joey broke his catapult and he needs it for tomorrow.

I love this man. I love his wife. I love his son. I love his daughter. I love their dog. They accept me as I am.

I’m messy and a bit scattered. Our yard has the same charm as Munch’s Paper Bag Princess. They are so organized and orderly I have no idea how they can stand living beside us.

Live and let live Jimmy. Live and let live. It’s your yardI wouldn’t want my yard like that but your yard is not my yard.

Holy shit that’s about the kindest thing I could ever hear. I wish other people could behave this way well beyond just accepting yards. Some people are messy. Some people are ugly in their yards, anti social behaviours and opinions.

Some would try to ‘call the city’, cancel me or try to focrce you to live by and up to their standards and are evangelical about it.

It's the evangelical mindset of those who insist on their way being the only way that sends me into wild fantasies of wrathful vengeance.

Not necessarily the religious ones but the vegans or the anti fill in the problematic belief system here types.

So with Peter and Joey, I took the parts to the catapult that were in need of repair and had them fixed in less than an hour.

Jimmy! Wow! I’m grateful! Thank you! I don’t kno how to repay you! Joey, come say thank you to Uncle Jimmy!

Uncle Jimmy? I gotta say I was touched - even if it was a joke. I love these people. They let me be me - without advise, pretense or shared judgement.

This was the kind of relationship that made the conflict with the other neighbors seem even more absurd and unnecessary.

How could we possibly repay you Jimmy?

Oh Peter, my dear neighbour, you already have - tenfold.

Thank you for being who you are.

Remember fools,

Love the people who love you

and fuck the fucking fuckers.

And when your neighbour asks you to do his sons homework for him?

Step up and smile.

Good fences make good neighbors and good boundaries?

They make room for love.