general Neighborliness does not reside in my soul of souls. Apparently.

Posted May 25, 2006 • Comments Off on Neighborliness does not reside in my soul of souls. Apparently.

Last night there was an ambulance out front, and I watched them put a lady in the back with her foot wrapped up in a great big bandage. I don’t know any of my neighbors by sight so I didn’t really think about it. (Deborah just pointed out that on hearing “ambulance” her first thought was that something had snapped and the neighbor on the other side had finally started smacking Dominique around. Good point. That wasn’t it.)

Anyway, upon seeing it was an older lady whose life wasn’t actually in danger, I didn’t really think about it until just now, when my next door neighbor’s sister came out onto the deck to walk my next door neighbor’s tiny, tiny Chihuahua and asked if I’d heard anything last night.

Turns out the lady in the ambulance is the lady who lives next door to me, who has the deck next to mine, and who has 1000 plants that she takes way better care of than I take of mine.

Her sister said my neighbor fell down the deck stairs (which we share) and broke her ankle and lay there for 15 minutes, screaming for help. And no one heard her. Her sister said she said “my neighbor always has her door open, but last night I could see she didn’t!”

So now I feel really, really bad, thrice over.

First, I feel bad that I didn’t have my door open last night and didn’t hear her yelling.

Second, I feel bad that she knows I have the habit of keeping my deck door open on pleasant nights (I have a screen in the doorway so I can) and I don’t know anything about her.

Third, I feel bad that I’m relieved I didn’t hear her, because if I had, I would have had to rescue her.

Fourth (yeah, I know), I’m pissed at the ambulance guys, who I happen to know brought her up the deck stairs and through the house and down the front stairs to the ambulance, when they should have gone around the building.

The sister (and the sister’s kid) were kind of laughing about it, and she said my neighbor was wearing flip-flops, which I learned a few years ago not to do on these particular stairs, and obviously a casted ankle isn’t going to ruin anyone’s life. And I was horrified when she told me, and I said I was (and I am, kind of) sorry I didn’t hear her yelling. But I still feel like a scumbag all around.