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Future neighbours
How do you get to know your neighbours, especially your next door neighbour?
The bachelor next door never introduced himself to me. The only times I have spoken to him were to answer his knocks at the door. "It's 9 pm," he says. "Will you stop playing the piano?" During the day if he is indoors and I am playing the piano, he cranks up his stereo until the wall between us shakes.
The last adjacent neighbour knocked on my door to introduce himself. Despite my warm welcome, the first thing he said was "That's your piano? It's a bit loud, isn't it?"
Tonight at the annual barbeque of my future neighbourhood, I meet my future next door neighbours. "I hear you have a piano," he says. "Yes, it's a grand piano. I'm told that the houses are pretty sound proof," I reassure him. "Oh yeah? Who told you that? I can hear every single note when the kids play their piano next door."
Until we can get past the piano, we won't be able to have a conversation. It was never like this in Houston. When I told my next door neighbour that I was going to have a going away party and it might last well into the early hours, he cried, "Oh no! I won't be able to hear your nice piano playing anymore." It was our first and last conversation in Houston.
In my future neighbourhood, my reputation as owner of a grand piano precedes me. Will I be loved or feared? The solution, I think, is to sound proof the piano room. Then the real convesation may begin.
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2 September 2005 Friday
Related links:
Neighbours
New neighbours
From neighbours to friends
What I will miss
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