Ooooookaeeeyyy...

I'm not done yet...

There some things in life that are peculiar to me.  This is one of them.

/*** The following is a metaphor.  There is no literal reference to any of the writer's real-world neighbors. ***/

One day, a neighbor tosses a pine cone from his tree over the fence into the next-door neighbor's yard thinking it would be funny.  The next door neighbor thinks its hilarious.  Late at night, he goes and gets some pine cones from his tree and tosses them back over the fence into the original neighbor's yard.

The next morning, the original thrower looks out his kitchen window and sees a pile of pine cones in his yard.  They are not from his yard.  Ohhhhh, my funny neighbor got me back, he thinks to himself.  That's awesome!!  He laughs.

Over the next few weeks, the two comedians go back and forth tossing pine cones over the fence at each other, each time, the recipient laughing at the jest.  All of a sudden, one day, the original neighbor walks outside and finds pine cones in his yard from the other neighbor.  He wigs out, marching over to the fence to find the culprit.

"What the hell are these pine cones doing in my yard?!!!" he yells.

The other neighbor, a bit on his front foot, thinks surely he must be messing with me.

"You bum!!!  I said, 'What the hell are these pine cones doing in my yard???'"

The other neighbor, now seeing that this dude may be serious is incredulous.  "Uhhmmm...well...yeah, they came from my yard.  I threw them over last night."

"The crap I have to endure in this neighborhood!!  What kind of person are you, throwing pine cones over the fence into my yard.  I should call the police!!"

Seeing that this guy is serious, and that he is very angry, the other neighbor is speechless.  How do I even respond to this?  This is insane.

Pretty soon, some of the other neighbors around the block hear all the commotion.  They go to the neighbor that is incensed about pine cones in his yard, and ask what happened.

"This low-life over here threw pine cones into my yard last night, and now I have to spend my morning picking them up and disposing of them!!" he exclaims.

"What a piece of crap!!" shouts one neighbor.

"You ought to lodge a complaint!!!" charges another onlooker.

This really isn't happening, thinks the pine cone-thrower.  The name-caller was having fun with what is now the "pine cone policeman", the other day lobbing pine cones into my yard as though he was tossing grenades from a WWI German trench.  The "complaint-person" was sitting on her porch laughing at the two as they launched cone after cone into my yard.  I'm confused!!!

Things continue to escalate.  "What I can't stomach is that this guy, throwing pine cones in my yard, goes to church." sneers the original neighbor.  "What kind of example does that set, littering some one's yard with this mess?!!!  What a hypocrite!!  That's why I don't go to church!!"

"What?!!" thinks the second neighbor.  Hypocrite?!!!  This is surreal.  I'm going back inside.  You people are nuts...

/*** This concludes the metaphor ***/

In an allegorical sense, I have experienced and observed the above event many times.  I can't put my finger on it.  Is it insanity?  Is it funny?  I don't know.  People are weird.

Imagine the squirrel, up in the tree, who has witnessed the two neighbors chucking pine cones back and forth at each other.  Imagine his surprise when the first neighbor loses his mind, out-of-the-blue, one morning.  I wonder what the squirrel thinks?

Regardless, even if the second neighbor was an @$$h01e, if I was the squirrel, I'd rather hang out in his yard.  At least he is real.