First time: I don’t have it.
Second time: Fuck off, stop waking the kids.
Third time: Hello, 911?
The neighbors know there are kids there, and they have been (according to the homeowner) visited by the police at night for having arguments. I’d say they were owed no courtesy, really. I might have ended the second conversation with “If you knock on the door again, I will call the police.”
Orat the very least, smack them on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
Going against the crowd, I have to say yes, you did. I’m not much for screaming at people to fuck off.
“Look, I don’t have your money. They’re not home and you know they’re not home and you’re disturbing the kids who should all be asleep. I promise I’ll let them know to come over as soon as they come home. Don’t bang on the door again.”
I don’t see what them being crackheads or methheads has to do with it. And I’m not sure that your friends necessarily would appreciate you being openly hostile to the people they have to live next door to, either.
I don’t think that you were. Something was definitely up. You don’t know what the husband agreed and it isn’t your problem. Not to mention, it isn’t 6:00 pm, it’s 11:00pm.
These folks already came over twice in a fifteen minute span, subtlety hasn’t worked.
Additionally, the part about the husband storming off and the wife having to go to talk to him seems rather immature as well.
You do have to wonder what they epected was going to be different the third time they came over.
So, did you friend and her husband get things worked out?
It’s not my business and it’s not part of the OP, but if I was your friend, I would have just let him be. If somebody wants to go away for a couple hours and calm down, why not leave him alone? Why chase somebody down to continue an argument?
As for the OP, I don’t think you were a bitch. Knocking on the door three times in the space of 30 minutes is rude, no matter what time of day, and especially since after the first time the neighbor knew that your friends weren’t home.
Ya know, I’ve yelled at both fiends and dogs in my life, and I only time I ever felt bad about it, and for that matter the only time I’ve ever apologized, is when I yelled at a dog.
- I don’t think you were a bitch.
- It’s only $20. I owuld just have paid the $20 and reclaimed it from the hubby. It would have been far safer, and easier. If their situation is so bad they can’t afford the $20 to repay you, never mind - consider it helping a friend. If you didn’t have the money on you tell the neighbours this, with a promise to get the hubby to come over soon.
To me it sounds like a pretty smart thing to do. If you know yourself well enough to know that you are not thinking rationally, and you are arguing rather than talking rationally it is the best thing to do.
Having the wife chase him to talk face to face doesn’t sound so smart.
That always pissed me off about some women I knew. Their husband can’t take anymore without losing it and the woman will still wants to shrew him out, so even though he left beat red and veins popping so as not to punch her she will try to find him to push it further.
Note I’m not saying the OP’s friend is this type of shrew lady. I doubt she is, but they exist.
I’d talk to my friends about their responsibility in this.
If the relationship with their neighbors is already strained then they should not interact with them at all, except perhaps a half-assed wave when they see them out in the yard. They shouldn’t be asking for favors from them ever, nor should they be promising to immediately deliver money and then fail to produce. The fact that the wife promised she’d go to the ATM at night indicates that she knew that they’d want the cash immediately. So she put you, the babysitter, in a crappy position.
Me? I’d have handed over the $20 then gotten it back from the wife. But then I have the gift of common sense, which means I don’t piss off crackheads.
Wait, the hypothetical guy is angry enough to punch her and she’s the shrew for following her? He sounds kind of like a psycho.
Am I the only one who rarely ever has cash on hand? I have lived with my debit card and some pocket change successfully for many years. Can’t remember the last time I needed cash and didn’t have it.
Further, when did paying off other people’s debts become common sense? Let that be a lesson to crackheads everywhere. If you should demand money, it’s common sense for people cater to your whim. Would your common sense have served you if it were $100? $500?
Ideally we’d teach each other manners by exhibiting good manners ourselves but it’s hard to hold up your end when folks are being that inconsiderate.
Crackheads didn’t seek revenge but they did stop pounding on your door - SUCCESS!
You do have the gift of common sense (really), but apparently you’d also have had 20 dollars. I can vividly remember times in my life when I wouldn’t have been able to hand over a twenty because I didn’t have one and didn’t know when I would next see one. Some people live pretty close to the bone.
Maybe that guy’s a psycho, but that doesn’t apply to everyone who leaves an argument to be alone for some cooling off time. The person who then follows one who obviously wanted to let the situation simmer down may or may not be a shrew, but almost certainly is an idiot.
I would not have given the neighbor any money.
The husband allegedly promised money to the neighbor. The wife may or may not have known about this before the neighbor brought it up. Maybe she wanted to verify it with her husband before paying anything. Regardless, I don’t know for a fact that any money is owed. I sure didn’t promise it. If it is owed, the wife might give it to the neighbor before coming back to her house, and it sounds like this neighbor would be all too happy to accept a double payment. Meddling in this alleged debt strikes me as a bad idea.
The OP hasn’t been back to the thread. ::strokes chin:: Hmmmmmm.
An update- when my friend and her husband came home she went over to pay them and to have a few words. The man came out, the one that I actually yelled at, and he apologized.
So I feel very mildly bad for yelling at him, since it’s possbile that he could have been the nicest person on the planet if I had spoken to him instead of yelling at him. Slim chance, of course, but he apologized so he must have realized his actions were a bit rude.
As for the questions about my friend’s marital status… My friend’s primary objective was not to talk and patch things up. It was to prevent her husband from shirking his duty. Basically, he has a history of throwing temper tantrums and leaving the house for extended periods of time, leaving her to take care of 4 children under the age of 6, two of whom are nearly 3-month-old twins. She usually leaves him be, but was sick of having to shoulder all the housekeeping and childcare responsibilities, so she went to retrieve him because she was sick of waking up at 4AM to feed screaming babies. Especially since he’s been laid off so he’s not even doing anything all day.
Immature on my friend’s part? Perhaps, but I understand her frustration that she gets stuck doing everything while he’s free to have fun all the time. It’s a difficult situation she’s in, she suspects borderline personality disorder but isn’t in a situation to take care of 4 children alone.