O O Ø O O O O
Phone Cops
I have a crazy neighbour.
Don’t get me wrong. He’s a nice enough guy. Lately, though, he seems to have gone a bit off the deep end.
In the old days, I used to go over to my neighbour’s house all the time. We’d make burgers, drink beer, and shoot the shit. For the last 5 months, however, he’s made it a lot less pleasant to visit. Now whenever I pop by, he insists that I take my shoes off at the end of the driveway. When I asked him about it, he said that someone almost tracked mud through his house once. Worried that he was talking about me, I brought him a peace offering—a plant from my herb garden.
As it turns out, he really, really doesn’t like herbs. Calling it the “evil weed,” he threw the pot in the garbage, and ordered me out of his house. I haven’t been allowed back since.
One of the weirdest behaviours began only recently. Lately, when he invites people over, he insists there be an equal number of each gender. When I saw one of his ex-party guests at the coffee shop, I asked her about it. She explained that it really bothers my neighbour when there are boy/boy or girl/girl pairings at the dinner table.
With all this craziness going on, it came as a bit of a shock last week when my neighbour showed up on my doorstep. “We have to do something,” he whispered, “about the phone cops.”
Okay. So he’d gone all Johnny Fever on me. But what are you supposed to do when your lunatic neighbour starts talking about phone cops? You shut up, hear him out, and usher him out the door at the first opportunity, dead-bolting the door behind him. Since he wasn’t showing any signs of leaving, I let him talk.
“It’s the phone cops, man. They’re out to get me. But I have a plan. It’s a great plan. I’m gonna build a fence—an electric fence—that’s going to keep them out. And not just any electric fence, either. This is going to be a 20,000-volt, 50 amp, fry-em-where-they-stand kind of fence. It’s going to have laser beams. It’s going to have flame-throwers. It will be the most impenetrable electric fence in the world. There’s just one thing…”
“Er, what?” I asked, the dread starting to creep into my voice.
“I can’t just fence in my yard. Our buildings are attached. The phone cops could sneak into your place, and cut through into mine. I need to fence in the whole block.”
I stared at his crazy, panting face for a minute as I considered my options. Then, when I was fairly sure he was both serious, and not leaving, I began to point out some of the obvious flaws in his plan. Flaws like, I occasionally have people over, or, killing others is wrong, and even phone cops, assuming they even exist, look just like everybody else. My neighbour began to get agitated.
“It’s a special fence. It will just keep the phone cops out.”
What could I do? I told him I would think about it. Then, later that night, I snuck over and stuffed a “no freaking way” note into his mailbox.
I don’t think we’re friends anymore. When I saw him in the back yard yesterday, I offered him a hamburger. He turned it down. I heard a rumour he’s going to be moving in 3 months, so I guess I can put up with the silence for that long.
I just hope my next neighbour is a little more sane.
Now, what am I going to do with all these burgers?
Kjell Wooding
March 8, 2005
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