Another Rant

So sorry to throw another rant (and moaning and bitching and grumbling) in here, but it had to be done.

My next door neighbors are the nicest, sweetest couple in the world. They are older than dirt and have been married for like 67 years. We call them The Colonel and Miss Betty. They are transplanted from somewhere in the deep South and about as proper as people get. Anyhoo, the Colonel calls me way back the first part of May and tells me how he thinks he should tear down the perfectly good cedar fence between our properties and put up a brand new, shiny CHAIN LINK FENCE in it's place. He seemed to think that the old and yet still perfectly good cedar fence was de-valuing his property and he wanted the new CHAIN LINK FENCE.

I should say that it had been made known to us when we bought this house that the fence in question is his fence. His house was the first one built on this side of the street and he put the fence 6 inches inside his property line. So the fence is his to do with as he wishes. I told him that on a list of priorities that fence was way down at the bottom as far as I was concerned. It was a good, solid fence with no cracks, no leaning, no problems as far as I could see. He said fine, we'll leave the fence. He calls me back a week or two later telling me that Miss Betty told him that fence was an eye-sore and needed to go before the both of them dropped dead and it totally de-valued their property.

So the point to this is that in order to take down his fence the fence people will have to work from our backyard and he wanted our permission for this to happen. Ask me why they have to work from our yard. Go ahead ask. Ok, I will tell you. The reason they have to work from our side is because 35 years ago when The Colonel built his all Asian-inspired house he put in bamboo all around the perimeter of his yard. This bamboo is 35 years old and about 10 or 12 feet thick now and spreads like wildfire. You can't get to his fence from his side without a machete in each hand and a dozen panda bears chewing as fast as they can. Let me step aside from the topic at hand to mention that not only does the bamboo spread in his property; it shoots up in my yard about 30 feet away from the source. It comes up from the roots and is a major water-hog. That stuff sucks the water away from everything else. There is no competition for the water. When it rains (way back in the day when it DID rain) that bamboo will send up shoots all over my yard and they grow 18 INCHES A DAY! You can practically watch it grow. We fight the bamboo and try our damnedest to get grass, clover, anything to grow in those areas all the time. Can you tell that I hate the bamboo? We keep trying to teach the dogs to break off the bamboo shoots and eat them. They will chew on them if we whack them down for them, but they aren't as industrious as they could be.

Back to the rant at hand: We tried to politely discourage The Colonel from chainlink and we offered to split the cost of a new wood privacy fence, but he flat out said no, it was his fence and he would pay for it his own self. Fine. We will make peace with the fact that we will have a chain link fence on that side. So, after many calls to tell us that the fence guys were coming the next morning and we need to take our dogs out to pee and poo and run around and then get them put inside for the day, and then the fence guys being no-shows (this happened 4 times at least. nice reputable company, wouldn't you say?) they finally showed up Friday. Turns out it is just one guy and his wife. They were supposed to remove the current fence and put in the new metal posts so that the next day the other crew could show up and put up the chain link stuff. They worked their asses off taking off the fencing and then using a jackhammer breaking up the concrete holding the fence posts to get the fence posts out. They worked till dark-thirty and only had 3 posts installed. This is a LONG expanse of fence and with a post at 8 foot intervals, it was going to take a lot of posts.

It is my understanding that the newly-cemented in posts need to cure before the other stuff is stretched and attached. Saturday came and no one showed up to continue putting in the posts. The Colonel calls and tells us that they are coming on Sunday. Mr. Big Ed and I look at each other and had the same thought "Yeah right. No one is coming to work on a Sunday. Especially not on Father's Day." But we didn't say that out loud and be all negative to The Colonel.

Guess what? Guess who didn't show up on Sunday? The fence guys, that's who! And here it is Monday at 1 p.m. And guess who didn't show up for work again today? The fence guys, that's who!!

And guess who has to take her 3 dogs out on leashes to pee and poo and exercise and then keep in the house all day? Me, that's who. Who is being most inconvenienced by this whole debacle? Me, that's who. I am none too happy with this situation. We are all trying to be nice. We are all trying to be patient. But seriously, who does this? What kind of professional fence company acts so unprofessionally?

I have been worried that The Colonel and Miss Betty may have paid these idiots up front and now we are all hosed. It is a fucking mess out there with all the downed fence laying there, the 3 new shiny posts sticking up out of really messy concrete and NO FENCE! My poor dogs are most unhappy with this situation and can't understand what the hell has happened to their routine.

The old adage "Good fences make good neighbors" is so true. I am trying my best to keep a good attitude and not just scream, but it is getting harder day by day. So, that's it. That's my rant for the day. Just had to get it off my chest and let it go. If you stayed with me till the end, thanks.

And now I am off to go walk each dog separately in the hot sun. That way I can be out there 3 times, not just once. Insert large doses of sarcasm here. I need to work on that "good" attitude I mentioned, don't I?