Well, not exactly, but close. The neighbor who lives behind me died today at age 98. He was by far one of the nastiest neighbors I’ve ever encountered.

He complained continually when the dogs tore a hole through the bamboo we stapled up over his old rotted fence and got into his yard. Then he came to me with a proposal to put up a concrete wall between the yards. He wanted me to pay half the cost but was unwilling to allow me to have any say in how the wall would look. I said no.

When I decided to put up a new fence, he complained because it was too tall so we trimmed it down 2 feet. Then he complained that we were killing his bushes along the back of his yard. He stood in his yard inspecting the new fence with every panel we put up and criticized us every step of the way.

In the summer, he would watch tv on his patio and, because he was hard of hearing, turn the sound up so loud that I could hear it in my family room. He especially liked to do this on Sunday mornings and would oftentimes fall asleep at night with the tv blaring while he slept.

Any time that I tried to talk with him he complained. He was one of the most unfriendly persons you could ever ask to live next to. Now that he’s gone I only have the jerk next door to deal with.

I don’t understand how it is that I wind up living next to (or behind) these nasty neighbors. Most of the other people in our neighborhood are really nice people. Now I just have to hope that whoever buys the house is somewhat nice…and that they don’t decide to tear down the house and put up a some big-ass mansion thing.

So I’m not sad to see him go