neighbours

We have these neighbours we like to call The Cunts.

Yes, I know, it's not very nice. But it's a very apt description of them, or at least how we feel about them, so The Cunts they are. Mr and Mrs.

We've lived across from them for over 5 years now. They're only a bit older than us, childless, workaholics from what we can make out. Not that we care or anything. The point is that in 5 long years the only contact we've had with them besides a scant handful of mumbled 'hello's' when they absolutely couldn't ignore the fact that one of us was standing right in front of them, was the time Mrs Cunt reversed into my car. An incident she responded to by leaving me a (typed!) note with the details of her insurers for me to contact to sort out the damage. Er... no. You call your insurers and you sort it out, where-after I will get my car repaired at, get this: the least possible inconvenience to myself. See?

They're blatantly far too busy and important to notice anyone else in the world, let alone give a shit, and they're actually just not very nice people. We've tried to get over it (ok, I say 'we' but truthfully Husband shrugged it off years ago - as I think men are often better at doing - I have tried to get over it).

But today, today I was once more enraged.

I had the misfortune of pulling out of my driveway at the same time as they left theirs. It was raining (ja, we're having a bit of un-summer which is quite a nice relief), and their domestic worker - cleaner - was leaving at the same time.

Firstly, they didn't greet me - but there's no surprise there. The real shocker was that they didn't acknowledge the other woman's presence either, didn't notice her walking off down the road sans umbrella in the rain and then, then, drove straight past her - in the same direction in which she was walking - as she tried to tie a plastic bag over her hair to keep it dry.

I understand that it's probably bad karma to judge other people's karma, but The Cunts - their karma is murky man.

And then, the final outrage; they drove behind me all the way out of Obs and on to the highway, where Mr C proceeded to cut me off by jumping the solid white line to enter the lane heading to town. This I took wildly personally for about 5 seconds until I realised that their real problem is actually just that their heads are so far up their own arses that they didn't even realise it was me, their neighbour, they were offending. And that they didn't care.

I stewed on this a little today (as you can probably tell), but it was only as I was putting Frieda to bed that I realised the irony that I should have this little neighbourly complaint at a time when it seems that Israel and Palestine might very seriously be taking their ongoing neighbourly feud to the max.

That gave me pause for thought, made me realise that I regard myself as irreconcilable with The Cunts. I think they're people who tackle the world in a manner which is so far removed from mine that they may as well be living on another planet. Their habits offend me, I regard their world view as skewed and wrong, and I do, to be completely honest, regard myself as morally superior to them. And if this little scenario is but a smackrel of complexity that is the Near East - then I fear for where that situation will lead. 

[And on a much lighter note  -Husband single-handedly replaced out pool pump and filter in only a few hours this evening, thereby kicking any remnants of unmanliness over the jam-making incident firmly in the ass, and making it possible for us to go away for a few days from tomorrow. See you in 2009 lovely blogosphere!]