It’s difficult to have a raging campfire in the backyard and pretend to your neighbours that you’re not home.

Y and B spent almost every weekend of last Summer over at our place. It was really becoming inconvenient for us, but how do you tell people to not come over as much, or to at least call first? Although Y had surprised me with his revelation about his family dynamic, I’m not one to judge, and he seemed like such a nice guy that I was extremely curious to find out more about this apparent disparity.

Y’s conversations centered around his work, his life back in Poland and Greece, and his love of the nature that surrounds us here. He never mentioned his snowblower again.

B’s conversations were pretty much centered around one common theme: Materialism.

We like “things” also, but when we get “things” we get them for ourselves and have no strong desire to show them off to others. It’s one of the reasons that we live in the middle of nowhere–so that we don’t get sucked into that kind of game with neighbours. You know, it’s that whole “keeping up with the Jones” thing.

So anyway, we would catch B eyeing our stuff up and down. Not in a way that we were worried it would go missing, but in a mildly envious way. She would make comments about how expensive this or that was, or how trendy, and so on. She also noted how I do most of the cooking (practically all actually) and help with cleaning and laundry. She saw the cleaning and laundry stuff going on because they were over here visiting so much.

It’s nice to be recognised and for people to say positive things about your “things”, but eventually when it’s said enough times, you get a little uncomfortable.

One final nail was when she found out that we dance and I did a short salsa with her. That was a bad idea because she came over even more often hoping to dance with us.

In addition to that B started complaining how Y doesn’t make enough money to get some of the “things” that she wants. She complained that he doesn’t help with the cleaning or laundry and she is stuck looking after the house and their two girls by herself even though Y works from home.

As I said, I’m not one to judge, but I had to say something there. Y puts in 12 hour days 6 days per week working with heavy stone and power tools. She’s home all day with nothing to do but what she wants him to help her to do. I told her that it was unreasonable of her to expect him to make more money by working harder and longer, and yet help her in the house. It just didn’t make sense to me. I think my comment went in the left ear, bounced around a little and flew out the right ear. She started giving him shit for playing soccer (his passion) on his day off.

So he was over here even more.

B never believed that we have what we have because we have a multiple income household. It would be a much different situation for us otherwise. She was so set in her belief that The Girl could never convince her that the new BBQ that The Girl bought me for my birthday was a present from The Girl and not something that I bought. She did comment that she liked the stainless steel look of the new appliance because that’s the “in” thing these days for BBQ’s.

We soon realised that B had our weekly schedules memorised. On at least three occasions (that I remember) she dropped by the house while The Girl was at work, I was at home, and Y was busy working at their home. Her visits seemed innocuous and were under various pretenses, but she seemed reluctant to leave once she accomplished the supposed reason for the visit to our house. All three times she feigned surprise to discover that The Girl was not home.

The third visit to our place when I was home and The Girl wasn’t is the reason this whole written saga was begun.

Next: The beginning of the end.