I live in the best neighborhood. It isn’t fancy or anything, just good people and everyone takes care of everyone else. People smile and wave and keep track of each other and when I am on a trip, someone keeps an eye on my house. Everybody likes everybody, at least I think they do, but this week we were on alert.
The house across the street from me is for sale, and all kinds of activities have been interrupting our quiet lives this week. First, we had the move-out crew, pickups and trailers and trucks. I am not a busy-body, but this house sits directly across the street, and I can’t help but see what’s happening when I avert my eyes from my computer to an 18-wheeler that is attempting to do a five-point turn-around. The next day, we saw more pickups, people readying the house to sell, carpenters, followed by plumbers, electricians, painters, landscapers, and finally the three-person cleaning crew, who had to come twice, because they forgot to clean the kitchen, so I learned from my neighbor. Then the stagers, who brought a houseful of new furniture and toted it in. My father was a realtor, and he never considered stagers when he listed a house to sell. He just told sellers to pick up their dirty underwear, wash the dishes, and they were good to go. But, alas, times have changed.
After the stagers came the realtors and the potential buyers. With Boise’s popularity among people moving here from out of state, the traffic was incredible, five or six cars at a time and my quiet street turned into a fast and furious school of piranhas, circling the property, nudging each other out. I needed to go to the store, but I was afraid I might not be able to get back into my garage. It went on into the night.
With all the traffic and cars in and out, my neighbors and I were curious and before long, a line of about fifteen people watchers lined up in front of my house, well away from the street, watching and pointing, speculating what was going on and who might be moving in. The group reminded me of people watching a house burn, shifting their feet, trying to be inconspicuous, but we all knew what we were doing. Our street is an aging neighborhood with older people and within a hundred yards, live about a dozen couples, five widows, three widowers, and someone who isn’t home a lot, all of whom enjoy living our lives in quiet serenity, except for the occasional golf cart races from one end of the subdivision to the other. One of my neighbors is a ringer and we street walkers have to keep an eye out for him, especially on Tuesdays when the nearby restaurant hosts Taco Tuesday. Oh, baby, look at old Mort go.
I was told that our community used to have the reputation of Peyton Place, but I don’t think that’s true any longer. I’ve only lived here fourteen years, so am relatively new, and now we are getting a new person or family. Will it be someone with kids? A curmudgeon? A partyer? A golf cart racer? A street walker? Or a busybody, like me?
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