I'll take you on, mean old lady

I am a good Southern girl. I was brought up to respect my elders and call them "sir" or "ma'am." I actually love senior citizens and the wisdom of experience they have.

That being said, I hate the old lady next door to me. Okay, "hate" is a very strong word. I dislike her intensely. With a bitterness usually reserved for former bosses and ex-boyfriends.

As my then-boyfriend, my parents and friends were moving my stuff into this house in August 1995, I noticed her observing us from behind her screen door. I gave her a little wave, but she closed her door.

The next day, the guy across the street came over to introduce himself. He gestured to the house next to mine and told me about the lady who lived there. He said one of his college buddies had lived on the street in the late 70s and told him about her. She stares at and gossips about the neighbors.

I found this to be true early on. She would stare out the doors or windows at me and my boyfriend (then a series of platonic male roommates) and never returned my waves, so I stopped trying.

A freak Hurricane called Fran ripped through Raleigh in the fall 0f 1996 and tore us up. Power was knocked out and trees were down everywhere. My parents, who live in hurricane central on the coast, actually came up to help me out. My mama saw mean old lady (MOL) with her adult son and daughter in the front yard, and, being a friendly, saintly sort, went over to ask MOL if she needed anything and told MOL I was her daughter. "I try to speak to her," MOL lied, "but she ignores me."

Okay. You can be mean to me, but when you lie to my mama, the gloves come off. MOL and I have been embattled in a passive-aggressive feud since then.

The spring after the hurricane, I was living alone and didn't have a lawn mower that worked. I did, to be honest, put off calling my friends to borrow one for a while. And I got a public nuisance warning letter from the city. The worst part that my mama's name was still on the loan recorded in the public records, so my mama, the president of the garden club back home, was named as a co-public nuisance in the warning letter. The other neighbors told me that MOL had reported me.

After that, even though I was strapped financially, I hired people to come over every month to clean up the lawn. I was never at home when they came, but when they came later to pick up their checks, without fail, they told me stories of MOL standing on her side of the fence barking out instructions and telling them how grateful she was because "SHE doesn't take care of her yard."

Roommate after roommate got used to being stared at over the years. One night, Greg and I were enjoying beverages on the back deck and could see MOL pulling her drapes apart to watch us. We both waved to let her know we could see her, but she just stood there looking. "I'm gonna pee off the deck," Greg announced. "That'll give her something to look at."

A couple of years later, I was living alone again. I was smoking a cigarette on the deck at 11 p.m. and saw two 20-something guys taking things out of MOL's shed. So I called 911. I can't stand the old bag, but I wouldn't wish a murder/burglary on her. The police came and found that she was just fine and had hired some people to help her get ready for a yard sale. I know this because they came over to assure me that everything was fine. And she watched them do it.

Did she say, "Thank you for watching out for me?" Oh, hells no. She just kept complaining about my yard to the neighbors. And watching me as I came and went.

Steve moved in just over two years ago when we first got engaged. He was out working in the yard when she came out to the fence and told him, "I'm glad you're doing it, because SHE certainly won't." She apparently became enamored with his English accent and began talking to him any time he was outside alone.

After the first time MOL talked to him and I admonished him, Steve came back with, "She's old and she's lonely." After the second time, he told me, "She HATES you." See!, I told him, she's evil and mean! But he felt sorry for her, so on trash/recycling nights, he'd knock on her door and offer to take them out for her, saying she had a bad arm. I've observed her mowing her yard, all while getting meals delivered and letting Steve take out her trash.

Yesterday, Steve pulled up from a grocery run and MOL was out in the yard. She waved him over and asked, "So, does SHE work anymore? I've seen HER car here every day." Steve replied, "Leigh Ann's a writer and she's finishing up a book, so she doesn't need to go to an office every day." "Oh," MOL replied, then turned her back and walked away.

Mean old lady. But Yay! for Mr. Sweetypants!