Confessions of a Bad Neighbor
So the people next door might not be anatomically modern hominids. I don’t wanna sound racist or anything but I suspect they age differently than us and have very different ways of speaking. When we first moved in, we met a few thin young men with huge bright eyes and whispy mustaches. They said they owned the property and said it was fine if I wanted to anchor my fence to their outdoor garage. They were very nice and neighborly. Later, I saw these guys playing army men in the backyard in a manner very normal for boys 12 and under. Other times they are walking down the street giggling with females of similarly hard to determine age. Are they teenagers? Their dialects sound kind of like deaf people’s or people with no hard pallet in their mouth. Once in a while, I saw a small round woman who appears to be at least 70. She is some kind of matriarchal figure and it looks like she lives under the house. Her face is knurled like a wrench handle, and she has long teeth protruding from her lower jaw. She is often absent for long periods. I didn’t ask. When she appears, she is usually shouting obscenities and abuses at the young men until she is so hoarse, I can barely make out words. The boy slams the door and leaves, sometimes driving, in a very teenage fashion. There is a tiny, old lapdog, that she ties to a tree in front of the house. It barks continuously but it isn’t very loud.
Today, I heard my dog barking at someone who appeared to be doing nothing but walking down the street. I told her she was being unreasonable and made her come inside. This dog and the goose are very close, so separating them had an unintended effect. It turns out the goose had gone to the neighbor’s yard looking for the dog. Upon finding a tiny, noisy lapdog tied to a tree, he must have shown some aggression.
I looked out the window to see what the goose was honking about and witnessed some comical horror. The round old woman was waddling down the street with a long stick. She was swinging it and yelling and spitting. The goose (outside my fence, that’s bad) was walking in front of her slowly, staying just out of reach of the tree limb she was swinging. I went outside and she looked at me angrily. “That fucking goose better stay outta ma fuckin yard!” she said. “I’m sorry, I’ll keep him in…” I said. I was feeling like a bad neighbor, she suggested that the goose had attacked her dog. I’m not sure if a goose could hurt a dog but I still felt bad…AT FIRST. She interrupted my sheepish apology with cussing, threats of violence against me, and a threat to kill and eat the goose. I told the goose to come inside, which he did. I hope she scared him, because I really don’t want him going over there. I also don’t want any animals to be harmed.
The interaction made me very nervous. I can’t realistically claim that I didn’t do anything wrong… I mean the wild goose I raised from a gosling shouldn’t walk into her yard and make threatening gestures toward her dog. But then again, the only logical response I could have to our one meeting would be “fuck off and die”. I can’t have enemies living next door. Making peace with such a person may be impossible. Scaring or running off my neighbor would also be very bad. Keeping a canadian goose inside a fence may also be impossible. In a way, I’m almost relieved that she was so horrible. It kinda overshadows the issue of me being in the wrong.
He’s bigger now but still seems just as cute to me.Not sure what to do.
itznu 
He now goes 3 houses down, to hang out with a pit/lab mix named sadie and weed their yard… funny
We have since made some peace with the troll, and I kinda feel bad for saying bad things about her. She still throws bread crumbs into her front yard in the only place the goose can easily see and reach, and she DID call animal control on us once but overall the situation is improving. Trouble jumped the fence when someone broke into my brothers’ girlfriends’ car. Perhaps all is as it should be.