Kids These Days

I mentioned in a previous blog about my neighbor who has a dog that barks viciously whenever she hears or sees us in our yard, driveway, and garage. She will bark at us when we are walking to get our mail/newspaper, watering the plants, and getting in/out of our car. Sometimes she will come up to the stone wall and show her fangs, other times it will bark at us from their front screen door. It is so excessive and so dreadful. Both hibiscus bushes at the end of the driveway died because my mom couldn't bear to water them any more while being harassed by the dog.

The latest incident with this neighbor happened last week. A young lady (my mom said she looked like a teenager) was watching a young baby play near their front door while the two dogs were in the yard. She stood there with her arms folded across her chest and eyeballed my mom, who was watering some plants, for several minutes while the two dogs were yapping at my mom by the stone wall that separates our houses.

I told my mom that she should have hosed the dogs with water but she said she probably would have sprayed the girl too. Haha, if only! Have you ever seen a soft-spoken, elegant little lady's blood boil? That's my mom when she hears the dog yapping. I truly feel horrible when this happens. On a serious note though, I cannot imagine ever acting like that to any of my neighbor-aunties. If any of the neighborhood kids tried, we would have gotten slapped silly. (One aunty is a retired police officer, another is a school prinicipal! You just don't mess.) It's all just a little sad, really, because this same neighborhood that I grew up in was awesome. Many of us kids were all around the same age and we came around 30-strong, maybe even 40, we ran around everyday until that sun set and we were called in for dinner, we had amazing annual block parties, we dabbled in your typical-kid innocent mischievousness, we played hard, and everyone knew everyone.

But now, with these unpersonable neighbors on one side and these people-who-don't-know-how-to-manage-their-dog-and-need-to take-their-dog-for-a-walk neighbors on the other side, I realize that you just can't get along with all of your neighbors. It's a weird and shitty feeling but I suppose after all, it's been a long time since Mililani was named the "All-American City" in 1986.

P.S. When I have a chance, I'd like to talk to my neighbors and maybe suggest they try this citronella-spraying dog collar which a friend said worked for their excitable dog.