The Neighborly Note

I am coming to learn that the Neighborly Note is a Dutch tradition with a rich history. What is it? Although it sounds as if it does frequently serve as a new resident's first contact with the neighbors, it is not a friendly gesture of invitation for koffie en koekje. While considered by its author to be richly informative, it is not an introduction to the homeowners' association rules.

No, the Neighborly Note is a short missive of vitriol and censure penned by cowardly neighbors who claim to have witnessed some violation of rule or propriety. Most often it is deployed on a garbage can or a windshield, perhaps on an offending bike, but always it purports to issue from someone with moral authority -- indeed, superiority -- and often it strikes an uneasy balance between informativity and threat. More than one friend has gone to retrieve the garbage can only to find the note informing them that their can has been left out for an hour too long (don't even consider preparing dinner for hungry kids before pulling in the can) or a paving stone too far to the right.

Well, a banner day in our household: we've received our first Neighborly Note! Our rental company changed the frequency that our key fob uses to open our parking lot without fixing our fob, so we're consigned to parking on the street until they get around to fixing it. When I returned home from the grocery store this afternoon I parallel parked. I got out and popped the back, checking to make sure I'd have room behind the car to get our formidably large pram in and out, then walked home.

When Jeff went back to the car later, he found a note under the windshield wiper. Unable to read the Dutch, he brought it in to me to make sure it wasn't anything important. He says now that, had he known what it said, he never would have informed me it existed. I have been known on occasion to take these things a little too closely to heart...

So the writer claimed that her husband had seen me hit her car whilst parallel parking and censured me for adding insult to injury by daring to walk away like a coward. She proceeded to threaten that she would be watching me and would follow me home if need be in the future. The note, of course, was unsigned.

Where does one even begin with this? My van has a tow bar on it whose knob would cause real damage to a car if I so much as touched it -- so it's quite clear I didn't touch their damn car. Next there's the fact that, at best, the alleged witness had to have been behind curtains fifteen feet away in the nearest abode, and I defy anyone to demonstrate that they could see bumper touch bumper from that vantage... much less from further away. Then I love the fact that the person who accuses me of being a coward doesn't bother to sign the note or give any identifying information. If this grave offense was, in fact, witnessed, why on earth didn't this person just come out and talk to me then? The mind boggles. What idiots.

Yes, idiots. Sorry, but when this crap comes along, the gloves come off.