One of my neighbors bought a large truck a couple of months ago and apparently decided that three in the morning was a reasonable time to work on it, revving it up and leaving it idling, often waking up several of the neighbors in the process. He never drove it anywhere at that point; he just went out, turned it on, and made a bunch of noise. This led to a few of us going over to ask him to refrain. He blew us off, and we ended up submitting noise complaints to the city about him, as he was disturbing our sleep.

This led to him spamming the noise complaint website with dozens of complaints about every house on the block in retaliation, all of them bogus. He made complaints about dogs barking at houses that didn’t have dogs, or people playing instruments late at night. The police ended up coming out several times to investigate, and the complaints were proven to be false each time.

The last time I saw my neighbor he was being put into a police car after having a screaming match with the police on his front lawn.

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(In this story, I am about eight years old. It’s Halloween, and my three friends and I are trick-or-treating around my neighborhood. I am dressed like a cat, and so are two of my friends, while the other one is dressed as Mrs. Claus. I ring the doorbell to a house. A guy and his wife open the door.)

Friends & Me: “Trick or treat!”

(The guy looks from me to my two other friends dressed like cats, and then to my other friend dressed as Mrs. Claus.)

Guy: “WHAT IS THIS? IT’S NOT EVEN NOVEMBER YET! FIRST THE GROCERY STORES, AND NOW THIS? PREMATURE CHRISTMAS DECORATING HAS STRUCK AGAIN!”

(He clutched his chest and fell to the floor. My friends and I just looked at each other in confusion. His wife apologized profusely and gave us each a big handful of candy. It was pretty weird, but you have to admit, we had it coming!)

(I am out late at night, walking to a convenience store. I lead a largely nocturnal schedule so I sometimes have to go to stores at night. I live in an okay neighborhood, but not completely safe, so I do my best not to look like an attractive target for harassment or robbery. There is nothing I can do to hide being female, but I wear old frumpy clothes, going for a look somewhere between “poor” and “homeless.” This evening, about a block before I reach the store, a young guy in sweats and a hoodie, who’s casually walking in the other direction by me on the street, suddenly stops and turns to me.)

Guy: “Hey. Do you have any change to spare for me so I can take the bus?”

(It is too late for any bus line in this area to be running. I don’t carry any cash, in any case.)

Me: “No, I don’t. Sorry.”

Guy: “Oh, okay.” *goes on his way*

(Half a minute later, when he’s walked at least four house lengths away from me:)

Guy: “Hey! Hey! HEY! HEY! HEY!”

(I turn around and see he’s actually got his hands around the sides of his mouth to more effectively shout at me.)

Guy: “Hey! Do you wanna [unintelligible]?”

(I make a gesture that I don’t understand him.)

Guy: “Do you wanna [unintelligible]?”

(I make another gesture that I can’t hear.)

Guy: “Do you wanna [unintelligible]?”

(The best I could make it out in the moment, it sounded something like, “Do you wanna fight?” I was bit alarmed, and gestured again that I couldn’t hear him. Instead of doing anything sensible, like walking closer to me, the guy started making the “come here” beckoning gesture with his hands that is usually only made to little children. Having had quite enough of this dude bothering me, and having recently had another bad experience after a man made that same exact “come here” hand gesture at me and I was stupid enough to obey, I physically reared back while making a very alarmed expression, turned back around, and hurried super-fast in the opposite direction from him, to the store I was going to. Luckily, he didn’t follow me. Later, after going over the sounds in my head several times, I realized he had actually been calling at me, “Do you wanna ride?” Yes, the guy who’d just thirty seconds previously asked me to give him change so that he could take a — non-existent — bus, now decided it made sense to try to lure me in by offering me a ride.)

The dog we had growing up was the sweetest, friendliest dog you could imagine. He loved people, and all of our neighbours knew him and loved him back. They didn’t know our names, but they knew our dog.

At one point we needed to move to another state temporarily for my dad’s work, and took the dog with us. Six months later my mum, sister, and I returned home to spend Christmas with our family and ran into one of our neighbours.

He came up to us and said he hadn’t seen our dog for a while, had he died? Mum had to inform him that no, the dog was very much alive, we’d just been living on the other side of the country for the last few months.

They had noticed our dog was no longer around and coming to visit, but none of them had noticed that our house was empty and my family wasn’t living there or going about our daily business.

(A boy and girl are going around the neighborhood, trick-or-treating. The boy is dressed as a Jedi Knight, the girl as Princess Leia. They go up to one house and ring the bell. When the door opens.)

Kids: “Trick or treat!”

Boy: “May the force be with you!”

(The homeowner pulls back the bowl of candy, and gestures with his hand at the boy.)

Adult: “These aren’t the treats you’re looking for.”

(The girl started to cry.)