Even neighbors, I mean "especially" neighbors, can be unreasonable creatures. Humanoids. We have these people that live in the house directly behind us, and for the last three years we have not even exchanged a single word or gesture. In the beginning, I thought I would not let such behavior inhibit my naturally positive demeanor, and I would wave or say hello to them nonetheless. After months of absolutely no reaction from them in return, I just gave up. So why am I taking valuable time now to write about them? Well, just be patient and read the following please.

Try and visualize a nice, typical street alongside my house and the neighbors who live behind us. In the evenings during the week, people tend to get lazy and park their cars all over the place, often on the side of the road where they do not belong. Not very social but I have never let it get to me. However, these non-neighbors of ours, the ones I was talking about in the previous paragraph, they had had enough at a given moment. So what they did was make this cheap-looking no parking sign: a thick cylindrical stick with a flimsy round sign affixed to the top with no less than a lousy thumbtack! Now really, is there anyone out there in their right mind who would see this and take it seriously? Of course not, I say.

So about every other day I see that the sign has been torn off and tossed someplace, and sometimes even the stick pulled out of the ground. No matter how often this occurs, these neighbors of ours quickly replace it to its original state and position, an endless circle of frustration. This has been going on now for about three weeks. Put it back, it gets ripped out, put it back again, for the tenth time it gets ripped out and thrown.

The other day, my seven year-old son Maarten and his two little friends were playing on the street. They just happened to be standing next to that feeble torn-apart sign staring at the pond where the round no-parking disc was floating when that non-neighbor guy spotted them. No sooner had he dashed out to scold these innocent boys than he dashed back inside, hiding away from reality as best as he could. The seven-years olds remained standing undaunted by such weird gestures and mumbling sounds.

Maarten told me about it that evening, almost apologizing for something he had not done. He said, "I am sorry, but I never did it. We were just standing there."

I felt like getting mad, but didn't. It was merely a comedy, something to laugh about. I felt sorry for those people and the way they had to live. But it was their own choice after all, to heck with them. Let's try not to be too negative about our fellow humanoids now, okay? This is very difficult if not most of the time. But we must remember that we are all unique manifestations of the very same primordial form.