No Fighting Words Here

Sunday we were about to sit down for a pleasant dinner with friends when the door bell rang. Thinking it was my friend, Christy, I yelled as loud as I could, "COME IN." And when there was no response, I followed it up with an even louder, "COOOMMMMEE INNN!" The door opened and it was not Christy looking back at me. In fact it was a face I had never seen before. I quickly ran to the door, balancing the 4 Cokes I had in my hand, and said, smiling, "Oh sorry, I thought you were my friend." She replied, "No, I'm Lori, your backyard neighbor. I just had to come meet who this loud family was." I laughed and introduced myself, "Oh I'm Gabrielle, nice to meet you." "You guys are so loud. You are the talk of the whole block." I was a little baffled by her sarcasm but relaxed when she asked, "How many kids do you have?" I prepared myself for some of the typical shocked responses as I told her "4." But she only asked their ages. "6 next week, 4 1/2, 1, and 3 months." She quickly concluded, "Well, it must be the 5 year old." I was once again baffled. This lady was not being sarcastic. She was fired up and here to let me know. I was quite confused as I didn't know if there was an isolated incident that got her fired up or if she thinks we are just obnoxiously loud all the time. "Well my kids go to bed around 7:30......." I said and kind of trailed off as I wasn't sure where this was all coming from and even less sure about where it was going. She started in again, "Well, Saturday I'm having an event," right away I was thinking she was switching tones and must have come to invite all the neighbors to her event- whatever that might be, "so if you could just make sure your kids are quiet, especially during the speaker." At that point I looked at her, I'm sure with my jaw on the ground and said, "Are you serious?" with an absolute shocked look on my face. She thinks I have a loud, unruly family and she was solely here to share her disgust and request reform. She affirmed that she was indeed serious and I simply ended the conversation by saying, "Nice to meet you," and closing the door. As you can imagine my blood was boiling as I was trying to digest this 3 minute conversation. I mean who comes to your door and so rudely approaches you? Right away, I concluded that she was off her rocker and lived in the wrong neighborhood if she didn't want to hear kids laughing and playing (and let's be honest, mixed in with periodic screaming!) That being said, I was still pretty offended that someone had such a jaded perception of my family because I knew we weren't anywhere close to as disruptive as she insinuated! As I replayed the incident in my head way too many times, I didn't even have any of those after-the-fact comebacks. Still just simply baffled. Tonight, as I was sitting in my bedroom after having put all the bebes to bed, I heard lots of laughing and chit-chatting coming from the back and was once again reminded of the encounter. I didn't bother looking to see which neighbor it was but I did enter my fantasy world and imagine myself walking up to the hot-and-bothered neighbor's door with a plate of cookies in hand, catching her in the middle of her party, and simply offering a short nicety, "I hope you're enjoying your evening," as I handed her the token of friendship and walked away. Oh if I could ever have the cajones to do something like that! And that is when I remembered "the event." The event that- no, I was not invited to- but was asked to remain quiet during. And then I knew what I could do. No need for a witty comeback during the conversation. The order is already put in- I think she will be left speechless when she receives these:

with a note that says,

"Hope your event goes off without a hitch!

xoxo Your backyard Fiske neighbors"