We opened the door...

Now, how do we close it as nicely as possible?

A month or so ago we had our nextdoor neighbors over for a meal. They're nice folks, and we've lived peacefully next door to them for the past 7 years, waving at each other's cars, chatting at the transfer station, etc. Last summer our street got some new residents, and we found ourselves bonding with our old neighbors out of mutual dislike for the new people.

Hey, we tried to like the new people; I gave them a little potted plant and a card upon their arrival, DH and I chatted with the mom out on the street and heard a brief version of their life story, we have let our son play with their kid in the yard a couple of times. Sure, we weren't nuts when they hosted an elaborate party on July 4th, complete with sporadic and extremely noisy fireworks from 8:30 PM till... oh, midnight or so. Not steady, boom boom boom, fireworks, but the kind that go "BOOOM BOOOOM BOOOOM POW PZZZZZOOOOOOOW!" and you think, "Oh, good, that must have been their finale. Now it's nice and quie---" "BOOOOM BOOOM PZZZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOW!" Ok, that was annoying, but we certainly didn't say anything. I mean, hey, we keep to ourselves, and like living on this street because everybody leaves one another alone. :)

Then came the motorbikes. One day, the father and the son rode a pair of LOUD motorbikes up and down our street, in front of our house. They were really loud - that high-pitched "vrrrroooooooooom" sound, times two. They started buzzing our quarter mile street about 8-10 times per night, right around the time we'd get home from work and start to unwind a bit. You know, like the time of night (6-8 PM) when you're sitting on your back deck, listening to the sounds of the forest.

For the first time in my entire life, I contemplated calling the cops on them. Neither DH nor myself has ever called the cops on anyone before; as I said, we're extremely live & let live kind of folks. But this... well, this was bad.

Then one day after about a week, the motorbikes stopped buzzing the street. We thanked our lucky stars and moved on with our lives, until Saturday when DH was out on a walk and the new neighbor (not the dad, who refuses to speak with us, even when spoken to) approached him and said, "Hey neighbor. Did you call the cops on us?"

Huh. DH said no, and she told him that a neighbor had complained, the cops had come out, and now they are forced to just ride in their driveway. Bear in mind that one of these "drivers" is seven years old and does not wear a helmet. Nice. Anywho, it was clear that she didn't believe that Jim wasn't the one who called the po-po, but he was polite and we had a good chuckle when he got home. Then, he called our neighbor and that is how it came to pass that we had them over for dinner one night.

As I said, they're nice folks - older, with no kids. It's pretty clear that the dude spends quite a bit of time drunk out of his gourd (not that there's anything wrong with that!), but we really enjoyed our night with them. Unfortunately, at some point that night, the wife mentioned going to an amusement park for a Halloween thing this month, and I guess we said, "sure!"

Now they have called and want to go, and now we don't want to and don't know how to tell them that there's no excuse at all, we just don't wanna go. They're nice people - but if we're doing an amusement park, we'd like to go with our friends and their kids, ya know? I don't know how to break it to them, and I certainly don't want to tick off another set of neighbors! As DH put it, it'd feel a little bit like we were going with our parents... and I don't know if they expect us to get a babysitter or what (they're NOT kid people), but that's not happening. So.

I wish we hadn't opened that door... it's much easier just waving hello to neighbors.