All in the Family Feud

The Bunkers, our crotchety and decrepit downstairs neighbors, have been trying to oust me and Charlene out of our condominium complex ever since they moved in two years ago.

It all started because Mrs. Bunker allegedly had a bad childhood experience with a German Shepherd. Therefore, anytime she sees Zigzag, be it near or far, she jumps back, clutches her heart, and yells, "I don't trust that dog!"

About a month after the Bunker's moved in below us, we received a letter from our association stating that their have been complaints about noise and a large aggressive dog. Now, if Mrs. Bunker thought Zigzag was aggressive, she should have seen Charlene after reading that letter. I did everything short of shooting her with a tranquilizer dart to keep her from going downstairs and painting the Bunker's walls with their own old, dusty blood.

I rarely see Charlene become that unglued. In fact, the only time I've seen her boil over with that level of rage is when someone took her appropriated parking spot. The perpetrator was lucky I was there to diffuse the situation -- otherwise there would have been no windshield left on his car for Charlene to place a nasty note on.

It took an hour or so before Charlene's fury weakened from a category 5 hurricane to a tropical storm. "I'm calm now," she alleged. "I would like to go downstairs and talk to those ASSHOLES about this letter now."

"Okay," I said. "But, before I let you go I need to frisk you for weapons. The last thing I need is to be bailing you out of prison tonight."

I offered to confront the Bunker's with her, but she was just as concerned about my temper flaring up as I was about hers.

I admit it. I'm not ALWAYS the voice of reason. I do get the occasional road rage. And, I also get upset when I see children on leashes and men talking on their cell phones at the urinal. But, I'm not proud of how I react to these things.

Charlene was gone for over an hour. I feared the conversation didn't go as planned and pictured her trying to dispose of their bodies in their large handicap-equipped bathtub with a bucket of lye. Thankfully, she walked in the door just as I was about to bust in on a potential crime scene.

"There you are!" I said. "I was worried about what might have you done to them. How did it go?" 

"It went fine." she answered. "I think we worked everything out." Or so she thought...

But, you can't really work everything out with a couple of bottom dwelling geriatrics. Our cease fire was in effect for only about a week before they violated it by writing another letter to the association about Zigzag.

I'm not going to lie. Most people would rather have a gun pointed at their head than have a dog like Zigzag unleashed on them. That being said, Zigzag has no history of violence. Sure. She barks and growls at people just like every other dog in the neighborhood (including the Bunker's); but the only things that she's guilty of biting are sticks, tennis balls, bones, and whatever I put into her food bowl.

"That's it!" Charlene exclaimed. "I'm going to write a letter to the association about them!"

The Bunker's weren't exactly model neighbors either. For one, their dog is more like a rooster. He wakes us up every morning at sunrise with a half-hour of shrill barking. Then they turn on the television, which is so loud that it sounds like they're watching it in our living room.

But, I'm being petty. After all, they didn't write to the association about something Zigzag did. They wrote to them about something that they're afraid of Zigzag doing (i.e. attacking them).

"Do you know what I'm afraid of?" I asked Charlene.

"What?" she asked.

"I'm afraid that the Bunkers are so old that they might forget to turn the stove off and burn the whole place down. We ought to write the association about that."

 "You know what I'm afraid of?" Charlene added. "That the Bunkers are so old that they are going to crash their cars into us while we are walking Zigzag. We ought to write the association about that too."

We devised a long list of ways Mr. and Mrs. Bunkers could hurt, maim, or kill us due to their old age. But, for whatever reason, we never sent it to the association. Instead, we agreed to kill them... with kindness.

Well, that didn't work either. Mrs. Bunker took that as an opportunity to make indirect complaints about the noise coming from upstairs. One time she ran into Charlene in the parking lot and asked, "Who won the race last night?"

Confused by such a seemingly senile inquiry, Charlene smiled and politely asked "What are you talking about?"

"The cats!" Mrs. Bunker shouted. "We could hear them running around all night!"