Straight to hell

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned my crazy old neighbor lately. And you may well be wondering whatever happened to that old codger. Well, you wouldn't be alone. He's been on my mind a lot lately. There was that incident several months ago when he subtly accused John of stealing a carving set of his. He actually called the police out to his house, but found the carving set just as they pulled up to his house. Then there was that incident not long after that when he called our house and demanded that we pay a $200 false-alarm charge on his home security bill. That was fun. It became clear to us that he was going downhill quite quickly. He mentioned to John, in passing, that he had gotten lost on his way home from the doctor not long ago. And we wondered if there was anything we could do to help him. Why did his children seem unconcerned about their aging father? Then, out of the blue, his son came down for a visit about two months ago. After which, our crazy old neighbor completely disappeared. His lawn service kept mowing his lawn and keeping the grounds tidy. But otherwise there was no sign of life in the house next door. Then suddenly, this past weekend, there was a flurry of activity. Several cars, including the son's, pulled up to the house, along with a realtor. Then one of those PODS (Portable On Demand Storage) showed up in the driveway. And as the contents of the house got loaded into the waiting pod, I couldn't help but wonder what happened to our crazy old neighbor. Hopefully he's somewhere with a much shorter fence, so that he doesn't have to drag a ladder out to see over it.

(Incidentally, the title of this post emanates not from where I think he's gone, but rather where I think I'm headed since I bellyached about him forever and now he may be dead. Ahem.)