Dear Nextdoor Neighbor: Sorry About the Arrows in Your Yard
Dear Nextdoor Neighbor:
Congratulations on the purchase of your new home. You’re moving into a great neighborhood with lots of children around, if you like that sort of thing. And, if you don’t, I’m sorry. I’m not moving.
Anyway, I’m writing to tell you about things that might end up in your yard. Most of them come from my yard. You might find arrows, for example. Those are unrecovered artifacts from an archery tournament last year. We know archery is dangerous so we are very careful with it, but you know how kids’ aim is with a bow and arrow…
You also might find hard-boiled eggs. Those are leftovers from our Easter celebration and egg roll. After the festivities, we told our kids to throw the broken eggs into the garden, and well, you know how kids’ aim is when throwing eggs…
The next thing to watch for is nerf bullets. We hold most nerf wars indoors where we can break things around the house and shoot each other in the eyes, but the guns wander outside occasionally. You know how kids’ aim is with nerf guns…
You probably see a pattern here: all my posterity has terrible aim. This applies to every piece of sports equipment we own including frisbees, kickballs, footballs, basketballs, tennis balls, etc. Really, it applies to any object small enough to be picked up and light enough to be thrown to the height of the fence that separates our properties.
If my kids are climbing the fence, it’s probably to look for something in your yard. It might also be they are bored and looking for something dangerous to do. And, yes, I know they climb from the fence to the roof of my shed. And from the roof of the shed to the roof of the house. They’re just looking for something — the same things that end up in your yard end up on my roof.
I also apologize for clogging your rain gutter. We accidentally flew a drone into it and couldn’t fly it out. Sorry about that. It was a small drone, and it didn’t fly straight anyway, so don’t recover it on our account. I learned my lesson from this experience: you get what you pay for. So, if you pay $30 what you get is a plastic drone that drifts aimlessly into your neighbor’s rain gutter even while you’re pushing the drone control levers in the exact opposite direction.
I should also address skid marks — the kind made with bicycle tires. The marks on your sidewalk are definitely not permanent. I know because only a few skid marks are visible on my driveway out of the hundreds created since we’ve lived here. I hope you can appreciate how much coordination it requires from a four-year-old to make skid marks as long as the ones on your sidewalk today.
Also, a word on landscape lights, in case you’re into that kind of thing. Our last neighbors had nice landscape lights, but they put them in their front yard. They were so pretty my kids couldn’t help but dig them up and throw them in their small pond. We punished our children and profusely apologized to our neighbors, of course, and not only because the whole thing was recorded on their doorbell video camera.
Lastly, a word on potted plants. Our other neighbors were into potted plants and put some in their backyard. Somehow, my two-year-old son made it through the fence and scattered the pots and their contents across the porch. I cleaned it up, of course, and severely punished my son. And, forty minutes later, I punished him again when he did the same thing.
I think that does it. If you have questions I didn’t address in this letter, like, “Why is there a toddler running down the street in only a diaper?” or “Where are that toddler’s parents?” You know where to find me. But really, if you give me five minutes, I’ll realize they are missing and come after them myself.
Best
Taylor Jensen
