Foreigners

"There was a foreign pickup in the driveway across the street this morning," my husband remarked as we munched on our quesadillas for lunch.

"Hmm...were they from Afghanistan?" I asked.

He chuckled when he realized the nuance of his vocabulary selection was a bit misleading. He attributed it to a former co-worker who often used words that seemed out of context. Truth be told, I had noticed the same vehicle as well. The out-of-place pickup looked like it could have been from across town or other such faraway place.

It is no secret that I am a nosy neighbor. My bird watching binoculars are always at the ready, be it for my feathered friends or otherwise. I blame my intense curiosity on the party-line of my youth. We had a telephone that was connected to other households in the neighborhood. Each home had a unique telephone ring pattern so we knew when to pick up the phone for our family. Naturally, the temptation was great to "rubberneck" as we called it. Our parents discourage such behavior but one of my grandmothers perfected it to an art form. I can still see her relaxing on the couch with the phone tucked under her chin, not speaking a single word and cautioning us kiddies to be a little less noisy.

I do not think anything spoken on the party line jeopardized our national security. We knew everything we said was open to the neighborhood. My dad always warned us not to talk too long on the phone and "do not tell any secrets." Good advice on any given day in my opinion.

I think there can be an advantage to having nosy neighbors. We have a neighborhood crime watch sign posted down the street from us. It states, "We immediately report all suspicious activities to our police department." I feel I am doing my civic duty when I watch for foreign vehicles and lingering passersby. I have recorded license plates if I felt it might be helpful, but so far the police department has not requested my assistance.

Fortunately, we are not a crime-riddled neighborhood. We have a few cases, of course, such as the neighbor who had his lawn mower stolen in broad daylight. He left the mower on his driveway after mowing his lawn and went into his house for a short break. Whammo, someone of a nefarious provenance loaded up his mower and took off. The neighbor across the street from him had his security camera turned off and another neighbor's camera had a dead battery. Another neighbor saw it happen but assumed someone was picking it up for good reason. Yes, we are a quite the crackpot team around here.

And that is the reason it takes many eyes to keep a neighborhood safe. I know a couple of our neighbors keep a close eye on the comings and goings at our house and I am grateful for their surveillance. We usually alert them if we are going out of town so they can be a little more watchful for us. We do the same for them.

In reality, my neighbors probably do not have to let me know if they are going to be out of town. My intense curiosity, a.k.a. nosiness, will likely help me keep track of our neighborhood activity, foreign or otherwise. Sherlock Holmes would be proud.