My neighbors are some of the most “unique” people you could have as neighbors. They are noisy, annoying and in trouble with the law on occasion. My neighbors produce offspring that follow in their foot steps and continue to menace society. Are the neighbors I’m talking about the nice old lady who lives down the street? No. The first time I saw some stupid neighbors was about six years ago. I was nine years old then. I saw moving trucks appear in front of the house across from mine. The neighbors looked normal enough, they arrived with two U-haul moving trucks and a white pick up truck, and a lot of people who I assumed were there to help them move. My mom went over to greet the neighbors. Watching from my bedroom window, I saw that the neighbors were really quite friendly. I saw that they had three young boys, and one young girl all in the same ages as me. My mom continued to talk to the new neighbors for about five more minutes. When she came back, she told me about how wonderful the neighbors were, and how the father of the children decided that it would be great idea if I would hang out with the children tomorrow.

“It’s a chance for you to get to know our neighbors,” she said. So the date was set. The next day, my mom saw the kids outside and sent me across the street. I walked across the neighbors oak porch with pillars that resembled something from ancient Greece. The previous neighbors left the house in reasonable condition.

I knocked on the door in response, heard a man shout, “Laura, get the door!”

“I’m busy, make Zach get the door!” was the response from Laura.

The man began to shout, “Zach, go….”,

“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” Zach said. The door flung open and a familiar face from yesterday was there to greet me.

“Hello?” asked the young child.

I responded with “ Hi, my mother sent me here to hangout with you.”

“Oh, my dad told me you were coming, why don’t you come in?” Zach said. I came in and saw boxes and furniture all around the living room. Zach walked me up the stairs to meet his siblings. We first came to his little brother’s room. His little brother was unpacking clothes and other items from boxes.

“This is Mark, say hello Mark,” Mark looked up at me and examined the stranger in his home

“Hi, who are you?” asked Mark.

“I’m Nick, I’m your neighbor. What’s up?” I said.

“Nothing’,” said Mark.
Zach escorted me to a room that was inhabited with one young boy and one young girl.

“Ok then, now to introduce you to the rest of my siblings,” Zach said. From the looks of it, the girl needed help unloading her stuff and the young boy was there to help her.

“This is Jeff and Christina but, you should call her Chris,” Zach said. The children stopped unloading items to look at me.

“Hello,” they managed to say at the same time. The children then continued to unpack.

“Ok, so what do you want to do now?” asked Zach.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Well, you any good at basket ball?” asked Zach.

“Sure, I guess,” I responded. So he took me out the door I came in and to the basket ball hoop that I some how didn’t manage to see when I came to the house. Zach opened his garage door and grabbed a basket ball.

He then bounced the ball to me and said, “You get the ball first.” I looked at him oddly because he was a year older than me and quite big for a child his age.

“I’m playing against you?” I asked.

“Yeah, what did you think I meant by playing basket ball?” he said.
So I checked the ball. On returning the ball, he whipped the ball at my feet, retrieved the ball, then dribbled it up to the hoop and scored.

“Yeah! What now son! By the way, it’s ‘Make it take it.’”

I looked at him in astonishment and then said, “Why did you do that?”

“What do you mean? Oh, I forgot to tell you, we’re playing street rules,” said Zach.

“What?” I said.

“That means there are no rules,” he said with a cocky tone

“Ok…..” I said

So we checked the ball and he began to dribble. He didn’t look too coordinated with the ball, but neither was I, so I saw my chance and took the ball. I began to dribble it to the hoop, he pushed me on the ground and took the ball. He jumped to the hoop and made another basket. I was lying on the ground I pain. I started to cry.

He looked over and said, “Stop crying, you only fell.”

“I didn’t fall, you pushed me and now my hand is bleeding, I’m going home!’ I shouted

As I walked home, he shouted out, “Pansy!” I walked home cradling my hand.

I walked through the door and was met by my mom asking, “What’s wrong?”

“Our neighbors are jerks,” I said.

“Oh, what happened?” she asked

“Zach pushed me and I cut my hand,” I said. The wound was not that bad, but the whole ordeal had more of an impact on me.

“Who’s Zach?” she asked.

“The new neighbor’s son,” I said.

“Well, we’ll go over there right now and speak to his father. Let me just bandage you up first,” she said.

So, she bandaged me up and we went back to the house. My mom knocked on the door. This time, the father answered. He looked half-asleep.

“Hello again,” he said to my mother.

“Hi, your son hurt my son, and I think you should talk to your son about it,” my mom said.

“Really? Well, let me get him. By the way, which one,” he said.

“I believe it was Zach,” she said looking at me to confirm this. I nodded.

“OK then. Zach! Get out here!” he shouted. His son appeared and glared at me as if I should resent existing.

“Did you hurt this boy?” the father said.

“No, I don’t remember seeing him,” Zach said

The father then said, “There you go, he didn’t do it.” My mom looked at me and then at the father

“You don’t think he did this himself, do you?” she said, pointing to my hand.

“Look, I don’t like you making accusations about my son, so you guys can be on your way,” he said and then shut the door. On the way home, my mom was mumbling about how nice they were yesterday. I got home and went up to my room to live the exciting life of a single child be watching TV and thinking of the events that just occurred.

I avoided the neighbors and so did my mother. We went months without an incident. July came around, and that’s when a new tradition started. A straight month of fire works, not even legal in the state of Ohio. The fireworks were extremely loud as they played target practice with our house. They would start at 8:00 P.M., and I would often fall asleep to the sound of fireworks at 11:00 p.m. My mom attempted to tell them to stop. I didn’t hear what she said but, knowing her, she was probably polite.

They would all laugh and say, “Yeah lady, we hear you.” My mother would go inside, but the fireworks would not stop hitting our house. This still occurs today, every holiday, but mostly in July.
These were no the only traditions my neighbors held. Every year I would make a snow fort and snow man that would later be demolished when my mother and I were not home. The worst of their traditions happened when they had cousins over. They would stomp out are garden and other things, but we did not have proof to make accusations. Once they sprayed some yellow liquid on my house which I later determined was mustard. The worst was when they all got paint ball fun and painted the front of the house a rainbow of colors. They didn’t break a window which was good. My mother could not get anything on them because she couldn’t get any real evidence. We were not the only neighbors that suffered this.

Over time, this ceased. One day however, the cops showed up by their house. I saw them handcuff and shove the father of the children into the cop car. He went to jail for abusing his son or something. The children wouldn’t be able to see their father anymore, or at least not legally. I didn’t think that was fair. They may have been a jerk to me, but no one should go without a father. Although the father wasn’t a fit parent, the kids shouldn’t be punished for it, so I every time I see them, I can at least feel empathy towards them and over time, get along with each other.