Love thy Neighbor?

Since today is a pagan holiday christmas, I figured I would trot out the old 'love thy neighbor' line, and see if it still makes any sense.  Freud thought it was one of the sillier pronouncements of christianity, he thought that for a religion, any religion, to attempt people to some sort of universal love was the height of folly. I have to admit, I am inclined to agree with him. To love everybody as a neighbor is to love nobody very much. My neighbor generally has not proven worthy of my love "I must honestly confess that he has more claim to my hostility, indeed my hatred." (Freud Civilization and Its Discontents).  

And if I look at that statement in its most personal of terms, I agree, my neighbors are raging assholes. Both of my neighbors and I have engaged in a 'battle of the trash can.' One neighbor has, on more than one occasion, 'stolen' my trash can. We all have trash cans, and why he feels the need to steal mine, and attempt to foist his trash can off on me, is unfathomable to me. A long time ago, I wrote a post about my trash can (good old number 1947), and clearly I am not the type of fellow to take this theft lightly. Even painting my house number in LARGE letters on the top and side of my trash can, did not stop my 'loving' neighbor from can napping my trash can. A quick visit, and an exchange of some terse words, did eventually lead to 1947's safe return, but really who steals a trash can? Thus neighbor one has proven himself unworthy of my love.

Neighbor number two is also a raging ass hat, that should be taken out, stood up against a wall, and shot like a dog. In fact the source of the trouble I have with number two is a dog. Their dog to be precise, when they moved into the house on the other side of me there was a fence that connected onto my house. It was not my fence, and it was quite, illegally, protruding onto my property. After several warnings, that were ignored, I hired some grim men with chain saws to remove the offending bit of fence from my property. Number two just did not seem to understand the problem, the fence was the only thing that kept their dog  'penned in' their backyard. Tough shit, get your own fence was my reply, and eventually they did, but not before trying to 'create' a fence of their own by using THEIR trash can (rolled onto my property ) to close the newly minted gap in the fence line.  Not the brightest of ideas, and for over a month I took unmitigated pleasure in coming home, piss drunk, and moving their trash can back to the 'right side' of the property line. They caught onto that trick and tried to built a 'makeshift' fence, I took even more pleasure in drunkenly kicking it down at 3 am. It was a lot of fun, and I miss being able to do it. I miss it because eventually they figured it out and built their own fence along the property line just like a 'good neighbor' should. 

Clearly, I am not going to be asked to do a State Farm commercial anytime soon. I am not a good neighbor, nor do I intend to be. I keep to myself, and all I ask is for you to leave me the fuck alone. It is just that simple, but apparently too complicated for people in my 'hood' to understand. I am going to have to take the side of Freud here, and agree that in my neighbors the idea of love is not a popular one. I do not doubt they could regale you with stories of what a crap neighbor I am as well, but that is their problem. I will not be going over with cookies to make peace anytime soon. Universal love is for people who live in ivory towers. I live in a place surrounded by trash cans, it is called reality, and loving thy neighbor is not going to happen. Merry Xmas, happy holidays, God Jul, bah humbug!