Mark Phillips' Pages: Workbook: 4/21/06: Stare down the new neighbor, the rudest one of the lot, the one who moved in overhead.

John Biggers, "Aunt Dicy and her Snuff Dipping Neighbors" — John Biggers, *Aunt Dicy and her Snuff Dipping Neighbors*

April 21, 2006:

Stare down the new neighbor, the rudest of the lot, the one who moved in overhead. No smile, no greeting, just a cold stare, until he looks away, and all the rest of the evening he's quiet, for the first time in weeks, as though he knows perfectly well the hardship he's caused.

Give the old neighbor your parking spot. The inconsiderate one who shares his cigarette smoke, and bashes into walls at 3am, and sets off car alarms with his machoburger muscle machine and its deliberately broken muffler. Why not? You're leaving, he needs it.

The antinomies of anger and forgiveness. Who deserves which?