"Knock it off!" (title by Betsy, as shouted through an open window, text by Matt)

Well, Betsy's gone and done it. She's yelled at the neighbors.

I understand that things get all out of whack when you're four days away from a C-section, but c'mon! Now I have to act all tough whenever I see our neighbors out in their yard. And these guys are drinkers, so there's no telling if I'm gonna have to fight one of them. Lord, I hope not.

Our street is really quite an interesting place to live. There are twelve houses ending in a cul de sac. In these twelve houses live twelve dogs (possibly more, the people across the street breed chihuahuas, which is an entire blog on its own), nineteen children, twenty-three adults (possibly more, the house at the end of the street is sort of a flop house, different people in and out from week to week), and three cats, but I could be wrong. And of these twelve houses, just this morning, five received notices of delinquent water bills which, if not paid in full, will result in cancellation of service. Five of twelve houses on our street. It's rather alarming.

How do I know all this, you ask? I work from home. I look out the window a lot.

Our old neighborhood was about twenty to thirty years old, the residents ranging from first-time homeowners (typically subject to delinquent bills) and senior citizens (typically subject to assigning the paying of the water bill to the cat). In the three years Betsy and I lived out there we never saw one of our neighbors with the tell-tale orange ticket stuck in their front door. Not one.

We've been here for about two and a half years and each month we see at least three houses on our street get the orange tag and of those three at least one gets their water shut off. And what's worse is that the one family which never fails to get the tag and which has lost service due to delinquency at least three times (that we know of, and those three were in a row, we'll see what happens tomorrow) has one of the nicest lawns on the street. They water all freakin' day. They water right after it rains.

It goes without saying that Betsy and I are confused.

It's a nice enough neighborhood and we like most of our neighbors, but we certainly have plenty of chances to scratch our heads.

I really don't know why any of that was worth writing, but as I've taken the time, I'll post it.