Neighbor Wars

It is no secret that Jason does not love his next door neighbor. They are incompatible in every way - Jason is tidy, Robert is oblivious of the clods of dirt the tracks up our shared stairs.

Jason is quiet, Robert shakes the building with his forceful door slamming.

Robert is an odd duck who frequently leaves the door to his condo unlocked and sometimes even open for the entire day while he's at work. (His furniture is junky so don't bother to come over and take anything.) Robert will also leave his house on the rainiest and nastiest of days to move one of his two cars (none of which are housed in his garage at any time) into one or more of the two "good" parking spots at the base of the stairs.

I ask you what does it matter if you have to walk across the parking lot to move your car into a spot now versus leaving it where it is and walking across the parking lot later to get in the car to go? None of the spots are unsafe, dark or prone to vandalism.

At first Jason's loathe / hate relationship with Robert was kind of ugly, and I try to be the kindly voice of "everybody is worthy of our compassion".

Today however, Robert lost the battle with me as a silent ally. He has met me a few times and I don't expect him to know my name but when your single neighbor of 7 years finally has a woman over (for SEVEN MONTHS) you notice.

Since we're leaving tomorrow for CHASTITY VACATION 2009 I'm doing a little condo clean up - you know, laundry, clean sheets on the bed, fridge exorcism, and then trash removal.

I ran into Robert outside while taking the trash to the bins and he's all "Hey, are you Jason's housekeeper?"

Housekeeper!?

HOUSEKEEPER

I laughed out loud and said that I was Jason's fiance, and have been living here since October.

I will admit that today I look kind of housekeeper-ish. I'm in casual pants, a t-shirt and no makeup. I'm cleaning house - but damn it.

There's no real exact reason why this question has me so fired up. Maybe I feel marginalized? (Is that demeaning to the hard working housekeepers in the world?)

There's no real point to my story, except that now I don't want to finish the household chore list I made for myself.