In the new old fashioned waaay...*

So here's a thing:

A couple of weeks ago I got home from school and was putting my stuff away in my room when I glance out my window. From my window you can see right into my neighbors living room and as I'm looking I see a man standing there, in the dark, no shirt, staring at our house.

So after a short "Wtf?" moment I call my mom in who says, "Um...lets go downstairs..." and after some conferencing and discreet spying out the window we decied to ignore him and shut my window shade. Maybe he's just having some heavy contemplation of...something. Whatever.

So a few hours later I peek out the window...he's still there. At this point I've started yelling out "What is he DOING?!" to my father at regular intervals. Okay, I've got to admit, I wasn't really doing this 'cause I was creeped out but more because it was really bugging my dad. Hehe. It was possibly better than when I got a manicure and my nails were orange and I would go up to him every day and go "Look, Dad, I have ORANGE NAILS!" and he just got the most exhasperated look on his face. Oh, I love my dad.

But I digress.

11 o'clock...I look out the window shade again...he's STILL THERE.

So my mom and I look out the window again, this time really suspicious and trying to figure out just what the hell he was doing. I was thinking maybe an image of the Virgin Mary eating a cheese sandwich has materialized on the side of our house and has him completely captivated. Okay, that's a lie, I was actually thinking something like he was lost in thought (though being lost in thought for that long didn't make sense) or possibly he was just mad at us for never raking our leaves in a timely fashion or still having our pumpkin out from Halloween or just the fact that we're not very good at keeping our house all pretty. My mom apparently was slightly worried he'd hung himself or something. Leave it to my mom to think of something disgustingly morbid. Once I asked her how come she has blue eyes though most Russian-decendant Jews are dark haired and brown eyed. Her answer? "Someone in our family got raped by a cossack."

Yeah. Thanks Mom.

Anyway, back to the creepy guy in the window. There's something you should know about my neighbor. He really gets into decorations. On Halloween he had a strobe light and lots of creepy things sitting on his porch. At Christmas he puts up tons of lights and ribbons and wreaths and candles in the windows and all that kinda stuff.

Well, apparently he was REALLY going all out this year because the crazy half-naked guy staring out our house turned out to be a mannequin that a couple of days later wound up on his porch dressed as Santa. It's actually pretty cute, he's got a bunch of other stuff as well.

So anyway, the moral of this story is be careful where you keep your mannequins or your neighbors might think you've gone insane and hung yourself.

Happy Holidays!





*Does this remind anyone else of that scene in Home Alone with the cardboard cutouts dancing in the window?