Love Thy Neighbor

Our next-door neighbors are a very sweet older couple in (I'm guessing) their late 60s. For the last week, they were on vacation, visiting their kids and grandkids in Texas. Today was the first day I've seen either of them since they returned.

I walked out of my apartment to head over to the laundry room, and Liz had apparently just gotten home from work. She was standing in front of her apartment with a can of Raid, with a determined look on her face, spraying a steady stream of the bug-killer onto a spot between our apartments.

I think I've mentioned the scary, scary black grasshoppers before (the photo, by the way, is actual size). I'm all about loving animals and nature and whatnot, but four-inch-long grasshoppers are where I draw the line. Liz must have dumped half a can of Raid on him, and he wasn't slowing down a bit.

We bonded for a few minutes over our mutual terror of grasshoppers and snakes and other creepy-crawly things we find in our yards and on our patios. She told me that one day, she was peeking out her gate at a snake, and a little green anole crawled onto her head. Naturally, she freaked. She went to brush him off of her head, and ended up knocking her glasses off, but she was too scared to feel around on the ground for her glasses, because she was afraid she might grab the snake.

That's one of the bad things about living in the South. Too many creepy-crawly critters.