Neighborly.
This past weekend, our neighbors had a yard sale.
I know this because at 8:00 in the morning on Saturday, I found Chris standing at the dining room window, staring into our neighbor’s front yard.
I hate when he does this. Stalking the neighbors is awkward for all involved.
Chris stood there for a little while, reporting every item they brought out of their house.
“There’s a dollhouse.”
“Oh! Golf clubs!”
“There’s a play crib.”
“Wow! Another set of golf clubs!”
After a couple hours, Chris declared that we should go over and say hello to them. I grumbled a little bit. I mean, the neighbors are really nice people, but I was in the middle of an emergency. SOMEONE WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS poo’d in his bathtub. I had issues. The neighbors would have to wait.
So, a couple more hours go by and Chris announces once again that we should go over there and say hello. At this point, I had the poo emergency under control so I agreed. But when I went to pick up Beanie, Chris kind of stopped me. He didn’t say anything. Just looked me up and down.
I admit, I was a sight to behold in my maternity yoga pants with the hole in the knee and my high school Peer Counseling t-shirt. My hair was in a wimpy ponytail that had kind of fallen over to one side of my head and I had on no make up.
“Maybe you should change,” he said.
“Change? We’re just going next door!”
“Yeah, but we should make a better impression than…that,” he said, pointing to the hole in my pants.
“Fine,” I growled between clenched teeth.
So, I change clothes. I redo my ponytail. I put on some mascara. I wipe the Bean’s slobbery chin. Now let’s go say hello to the damn neighbors.
We trudge across our front yard – Beanie on my hip, Chris following behind. And when we get to their front yard, we exchange hello’s, how are you’s, your baby is so cute’s. Like neighbors do.
And then there’s not that much left to say because, even though we live next door, we don’t really know these people. As I stand their awkwardly telling them a story about how I was so bad at haggling at my yard sale that I sold a television for $3.00, I start to think to myself, “Why did Chris make us come all the way over here? What else is there to say to these strangers? How long do I have to keep standing here? And where the hell is Chris???”
Chris had wandered off and started messing around in their yard sale stuff. He played with the golf clubs, he poked at a board game, he sat in a lawn chair. He basically did whatever he could to get out of the conversation. So there I stand, by myself, with a baby on my hip in my neighbor’s front yard trying to find something to talk about.
After a few minutes, I politely excused us so that the neighbors could deal with their yard sale traffic. As Chris and I walked back into our yard, he smiled and said, “See? Wasn’t that nice?”
He drives me flipping crazy.
He does this to me all the time. When it comes to socializing, Chris is The Man. He loves to have people over, meet new people, mingle with old friends. But he doesn’t actually DO ANYTHING. He just makes the plan and then sits back while I work it out. And just about the point where I start to get frustrated with the situation, he will sit back all satisfied-like and announce, “Well, that was great!”
Yeah, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself while I made cheesy small-talk with a complete stranger.
I swear, that man is lucky he makes such cute babies cause sometimes that’s the only thing that spares his life.
15 Comments
La Union Jobs
LOL, you’re guy is like a detective right there. I can’t imagine your face when you are running out of words while your guys is messing everything in your neighbor’s yard sale.
holly your biggest fan, but not fattest.
wow. i wish i could relate on this. but i am afraid that i am the Chris and my husband is YOU in this situation. my husband hates social events of any kind. i try to explain this to people and they are shocked. but its true. and the thing is, Jeff (my husband) is way cooler than i am. so i dont know why he wouldnt be social. he can get along with anyone. same with you, Katie. you are WAY cooler than Chris so why you gotta hate socializing so much? 😉
hee hee!
have a good day. man i love your blog.
Katie
Its not that I HATE socializing, its just that its so much WORK!!! Especially with new people. I don’t think I’m antisocial so much as just lazy!! 🙂
Kara
The poop in the bathtub is a tragedy! My boy has done it several times that I’m starting to think he likes to poo unrestricted by a diaper.
Camille
Oh, Katie, you’re so funny. For some reason the image of you two heckling about stuff like this, well into your old age, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. You’re a cute, cute couple. (Though I must admit I’m glad Poor Kyle is generally as anti-social as I am {not counting the rare Sunday afternoon when he has the bright idea to invite people over for dinner TWENTY minutes before it’s ready…as if people don’t make plans for their meals more than 20 minutes ahead of time…})
Jenn
Sounds like you are becoming quite the New Englander. Not sure about you, but I remember the days when I used to sit on my front porch in Florida and talk to everyone that went by. Now I hide inside away from the snow.
Eileen
There’s a new couple in the neighborhood. I really should go over an introduce us but I’d secretly rather plunge my hand into the disposal. Instead I’ll just continue on watching them from behind the curtains. Bwahaha.
Heather
I am the ‘new’ neighbor in our neighborhood and after living here 3months now, I know very few of my neighbors…. I am always reticent to get too friendly with the neighbors ’cause of our experience early in our marriage when we lived in Hawaii (my husband was Army back the). The houses there are SMALL and CLOSE TOGETHER and it felt like living in a commune really ’cause we couldn’t ever get AWAY from the neighbors!! We would spark up the grill, wanting to have a nice romantic night to ourselves (pre kid newly weds!) and the neighbors would be like “Hey! Can we throw some meat on too?” and on and on and on…. So now, I like to be friendly, but not friends. ‘Cause my privacy is important to me, you know what I mean? Does that make me a hermit like jerk? Maybe…? Rambling…
Love your blog. Should’ve made hubby BUY something at Garage Sale since he was so into all the stuff… haha!
;o) H
Katie
I TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU. 100%.
TeamHaynes
I’m really good at social functions with people I know or have met before. But I really don’t like meeting new people. Especially now since the only people I have been meeting lately are my husband’s nerdy chem friends. Not that they aren’t nice and all. Its just…they like to talk chemistry. Really? Did I not just tell you I hate school? And you want to talk to me about benzo carbonate blah blah blah? Um, ok.
I always laugh when I see pictures of Chris at the window because I have a feeling Taylor will be the same way when we own a home.
naomi
thats too funny.
Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com
I think we married the same man.
It’s not that I dislike socializing, but sometimes when I’m stranded making small talk with complete strangers while my husband flits around happily, I wonder why nobody stood up at our wedding and said “I’m speaking now!!”
Ashley
Haha once again that was hilarious 🙂 You absolutely crack me up!
courtney
Just stumbled across your blog. Oh my gosh you sound just like my husband and me. He says I’m antisocial, but he truly has no idea how much work goes into being social. Sometimes it’s just too much trouble.
Mandy
I am totally with you. We got all excited about buying our first home and all the cool get-togethers we could have now… So we are part of a small group Bible study and we offered to host one night. The leader was out of town and he’d asked Joe to sort of fill in for him. People are starting to arrive, we’re all sitting in the living room and he. won’t. talk. He’s just sitting there. I’m trying to be supportive and think of things to talk about until everyone gets there, and still he won’t talk.
Hospitality is not something that comes naturally to me, but I guess since I’m the woman, he figures it’s my job. I am the farthest from being a people person, have no desire to meet our neighbors (of course, we live in the country, so we can get away with that), and the only get-togethers that I really want to plan are with family. So I’ve concluded that either I’m just weird, or it’s normal for guys to have people over and not speak to them.