We’ve now lived next door to these people for five years. They’re a couple of elderly jet setters, I think. Retired Beautiful People or something. Just sweet, charming, energetic and friendly. This past autumn, the gentleman became ill and had to have some major surgery, and we did the good neighbor gig, shoveling his driveway and helping the lady hoist bags of squirrel food from her trunk to her back porch. Little stuff, ya know? No biggie. And for this we usually get thanks so effusive you’d think we donated organs or something.
Well, the gent is recovering, and yesterday was taking advantage of the lovely weather to wash his car. He noticed the WryGuy powerwashing the driveway and wondered if he could borrow the powerwasher to clean his deck. Of course the WryGuy said yes, and even got him started with the thing. Today, the gentleman knocked on my door.
“I’ve broken your power washer. I don’t know what I did, but it’s well and truly broken.”
I said, “Oh. Well, don’t worry about it, it’s probably not anything major, we’ll get it fixed.”
“No no no,” he said. “I think I really broke it. So I bought you this.” He stepped aside to reveal a brand new, really fancy-schmancy powerwasher that HAD to cost at least twice what ours did. I was struck dumb.
The WryGuy went out to look at the old powerwasher this evening. Started right up. Works fine. So he spent the better part of the evening trying to convince this gentleman that he did NOT need to replace our power washer. Somehow, this ended with the elderly gentleman taking custody of our old, not-at-all-broken power washer, and us getting the Rolls Royce of powerwashers in exchange.
Sounds like they were saying thank you for being so nice and helpful to the Mrs. Little thinks like you did can seem the most important at a time like that. Every bit of karma you send out will return 3-fold. Sounds like you got what you deserve.
Enjoy it and the knowing your goodwill was appreacated.
I have great neighbors. Love em both to death. They’d do anything for me and I’d do anything for them. Way to go AvhHines! And way to go AvhHines neighbors!
But, yeesh! DO again try to insist that the “Rolls-Royce” power washer be returned and retake custody of your old-faithful.
<I realize that in the scope of good-neighbor relations, this may be truly impossible, but I’d give it another shot.>
My dad has a wonderful neighbor who snowblows under cover of night. My dad gets up in the morning and, voila! His driveway is clear.
This neighbor has done this a number of times, so I finally told my dad he should do something in return. He gave them a gift certificate for Outback. I hope they enjoyed it (they never acknowledged it – they’re kinda stealth that way).
We are very lucky in the neighbor department. Not only do we have the couple next door, but this neighborhood just seems to have a abnormally high number of nice people. I once sent my teenager out to start shoveling the driveway when I heard a horn honk, opened the door and found my daughter staring goggle-eyed at some total stranger with a snowplow attachment on his pick-up truck plowing the driveway! The guy finished the driveway in probably less than three minutes, then pulled out and drove off before I could even get my shoes on to go out and thank him.
Another time I was cooking dinner and waiting for the WryGuy to get home late from the office when I heard a strange scraping noise outside the kitchen window. I peered out and found another neighbor shoveling the walk all the way to the back door. This same neighbor was once found mowing my lawn one day when I got home from the grocery store. I thanked him and asked him why, and he said he was bored.
We do try to be good neighbors as well, but there’s no doubt in my mind whatsoever that we’re reaping a lot more than we sow.
I just found out that our dear retired neighbors are moving because the property taxes are just too high. They are the kind of neighbors who watch the house, bring gifts of fresh vegetables from the garden, let us borrow their riding lawnmower, and sent a really sweet note when they learned I was pregnant.
I had befriended a cashier at the grocery store where I used to shop when I lived in Indianapolis. One day, after dropping $100 on groceries, I realized that I locked my keys in the ignition of my van. Without batting an eye, she gave me the keys to her car to take my groceries home, and to come back with my wife’s set.
I brought her car back with a full tank of gas, and with a trip through the carwash.
Unfortunately, she and her husband both died three years ago in a motorcycle accident.
If we’re expanding this to nice stories in general (and I hope we are - there’s enough badness in the world that needs to be offset by some goodness), I want to talk about my mom’s family.
When my grandma died (my mom’s mom), her seven very adult children and various spouses split her wealth (with no problems at all, I should mention). It amounted to about $6 000 for each pair. My mom had left her husband a couple of years ago, and was struggling to get by in a new city with a new life at 60 years old. My uncle who is fairly well off decided that he had enough money, so he just gave my mom his share of the inheritance. Of course, my mom, being raised in the same family, had to debate with herself for days before taking it. What a classy bunch of people.
Errrrrrr… oops! Ok that was meant for LifeOnWry and LifeOnWry neighbors. :o
But way to go anyway AvhHines and neighbors just for general purposes. That is unless your neighbors are not nice. In which case I’ll say, mean ol AvhHines poopyhead neighbors! (It’s MPSIMS after all.)
Just thought I’d update. We finally convinced our neighbor that we do not require the replacement of our power washer, that it was WAY too expensive, and that we totally appreciated the gesture but it was not necessary. With some good-natured grumbling, he took the Rolls Royce back and returned our plenty-good-enough power washer - and gave us a full five gallon gas can as well, to replace the less-than-a-gallon of ours he used.
He said he was afraid that if he’d broken our power washer beyond repair, we’d ban him from our raspberry patch (which is where we find him every morning in June and September, gathering his breakfast.)
What a jerk!
In my day we would have gone through the trouble to *actually break * the power washer so that you would accept the new upgrade. This guy is just plain lazy.
(I forget, which smiley do I use to show that I was being sarcastic?)
