Middle Man in a Neighborhood War
Let the record show now and forever more that I absolutely hate being the middle man.
So… a couple of months ago there was this huge neighborhood fallout. Why am I only venting about it now? Because I didn’t have a blog back then. Get off my ass. Anyway… it was Halloween and we were all at this costume party that one of our neighbors was throwing. Now, my husband is a dick. And I mean the king of all dicks. He’s really only nice to me and my kids but even then he has a tendency to say some really dickish things every now and again. Thankfully they’re rare where our little family is concerned.
We were all partying, having a good time playing beer pong and enjoying the evening when one of our other neighbors comes home from their own party. My husband goes over there to greet them and see how their evening went. Really he’s a good guy, he just has no verbal filter. So he was explaining to the neighbors what everyone was. After all it was a costume party. My husband went as a breathalyzer test…. yeah, he’s one of those people. So he went about explaining, we had a couple of pirates there, several in fact, a couple of people dressed as ancient greeks, a sexy fireman, and a catgirl. Of course, when my husband explains all this he’s a jerk about it. The men at the party were as follows: a fag (the greek), a pimp (the pirate as there were three female pirates there and he was the only male), and the missing member of the village people (the sexy fireman).
Now, the fireman’s wife was standing right there when he said this. Everyone that was standing there knew my husband was just being his normal self, bagging on everyone. But this lady, having had way too much to drink and being an extremely defensive drunk, started going off on him. He didn’t want to deal with it and walked away from it saying he meant no offense, that he was just joking around. Well she wasn’t done with it apparently as she went right back over to the party and started whispering poison in her husband’s (who was also very drunk and dealing with depression) ear. She went off about how my husband was making fun of him and only him and how he shouldn’t let people treat him like that. And she just kept taunting him and pushing him to do something about it. Unfortunately very few people noticed this at the time as they were still trying to enjoy the party.
Eventually the sexy fireman got up and confronted my husband. The details get a little hazy about now as this was several months ago. But the fireman wouldn’t let it drop no matter how many times my husband said that he was just joking around, and had not singled this man out, that he had given a teasing name to all the costumes there. My husband, surprisingly to me even, bowed out gracefully without jumping at the confrontation. He left the party and went to the next door neighbor’s house where he played call of duty in the garage.
About half an hour later, the fireman came back over to talk to my husband once more. I learned later that the entire time that he had been back at the party, his wife was still nagging at him about it. I had, obviously, joined my husband at the neighbors because that’s party etiquette. Even if you live right across the street, if your spouse or housemate leaves the party due to a confrontation, you bid your farewells too. You come together you leave together. But still, the man came back and my husband said repeatedly that he wasn’t going to get into a fight about this that he had said his piece and he wasn’t going to discuss it anymore. Yet the man, while drunk, had the nerve to go to someone else’s house and start shit in front of their garage with one of their guests. So obviously the occupant of the home in question came to the defense of his friend.
There was an exchanging of words, our host at the time expressly asked the fireman to leave his property. They almost came to blows but everyone else stepped in and pulled the two apart. The fireman is escorted home (a few houses over) and we all go back to watching the boys play call of duty. Well, turns out that the occupant of the house we were at (the greek from here on out) was so angry that he kicked his trash can and wound up breaking his foot. It was really bad. Thankfully the party host happened to be a doc (we’re all military… ya get lucky like that here) and came over to tend to the greek’s foot. He was pretty sure it needed stitches but the greek said he would wait til morning to go to the hospital so he wouldn’t have to deal with going in while drunk.
Just as things started to settle down again, the Doc’s wife comes rushing over crying (she had been at the fireman’s house) and asking someone to call the police. Apparently after the fireman went home, he was so upset and so depressed that he went to the bathroom and held a gun to his head. Thankfully his wife found him before he could do anything. So this evening went from fun halloween party to attempted suicide and police statements. PMO was called (our military police) and the man was taken into custody. All weapons were confiscated from the home and we were left dealing with a freaked out wife.
After everything settled down yet again, I went to bed but my husband stayed with the greek for a while longer to make sure his foot would be okay. Well turns out that it wasn’t. Before the night was out, I got a wake up call from my husband telling me he was taking the greek to the hospital. When they got to the E.R. it turned out that the fireman was there with PMO, getting admitted for suicide watch and psych evaluation. Can anyone say awkward?
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Now, it’s months later. My husband is away on deployment and I’m left alone with this awkward neighborhood stand off that we still haven’t recovered from. What makes it all terrible is that I have no issues with the fireman and his wife. Not really. I mean, they were drunk. People are stupid when they’re drunk. It’s why I don’t like to drink, nor do I like to go to bars unless it’s for a specific reason like karaoke or something. You can’t hold people accountable for what they do when they’re drunk. They have no control over themselves.
However, the greek and his wife and my husband hold it against them. They can’t stand them and get very upset if their friends hang out with them. So where does that leave me? The fireman and his wife have been very cordial to me since then. I don’t go out of my way to talk to them but when we do talk it’s extremely pleasant. But what do I do? Do I have a relationship with people that my husband hates and gets into fights with? Do I have a relationship that one of my good friends can’t stand? Why do I always end up in theses situations? Why do I have to be friends with everyone?
I hate being caught in the middle.
