Oh, joy...

The crazy neighbor is back.

May the Lord have mercy on my soul, as it is none too kind right now.

****
When we first moved here, 3 years ago, he seemed harmless enough.

Married guy, extreeeeeeemely outgoing, with 3 great kids and a wife who spent the majority of the time inside, but was pleasant whenever she was out.

Said neighbor soon became known as the guy who, despite having the exact same house we all do in cookie-cutter-ville, had the "perfect house," was a name-dropper - and moreover, a price-dropper, wore rather 80's style white team sneakers to coordinate with his fake Under Armour t-shirt of the day, despite a middle-aged average joe paunchiness, and who would constantly cut down others while at the same time show how everything associated with him was bigger, better, faster.

His egocentrism drove us nuts straight away, and we began dodging conversations with him as a result.

Then, his wife left him.

Enter a whole new ugly side of this freak next door. Enter rage that could not be put aside for the benefit of his kids. Enter inappropriate sexual comments from a man who drummed for a "Christian" band and wore his megachurch's brand conveniently upon him like it was a Member's Only jacket.

At one point, about 6 mos after his wife left, he was really inappropriate with me - talking about how he wanted to get some young, fine thing and wink, wink, nod, nod. blech!

It worried me. I called his soon-to-be-ex wife and told her I was really worried about the vibes I was getting from him.

She immediately asked if I'd seen anything inappropriate with him and their daughter.

I told her no, but that her question confirmed some of my fears. Was he a sex addict? Did he have weird boundary issues with people?

Oh, yes. Affairs, porn, you name it and she'd dealt with it. She shared some information about his violence against her, and I was shamed that we hadn't caught it, nor had we talked with her sooner after she left to see if we could help. But, long story short, we steered clear from him and his weirdness.

*****
True to form, he met someone before the divorce was final, and two months after it all cleared, not quite a year after the wife left him, he was marrying this new woman he'd met.

If we'd been friends, Charlie Brown and I would have asked him about whether this was the most prudent decision he could make, for both himself and his children, who'd been through a LOT. But we weren't so we just smiled and nodded stiffly when he told us.

In August, we (Charlie Brown and I) partied like it was 1999 when we found out he was moving into HER house. He'd rent this one next to us out to someone.

Which he did, but that didn't quite work out when his tenant wasn't EXACTLY what he hoped for.

This weekend, in February, a mere 6 months, he's moving back in, because it "didn't work out."

Uh, ya think???

Now, I'm saying WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Nothing like being held hostage in your own home on the premise that some extremely undesirable dude is lurking among us.

The crazy irony is last week we saw his ex and the two boys out at Burger King. She was not with a partner, and no ring was on her finger. She was tactful and filled with decorum and needn't have mentioned the Crazy Neighbor - b/c she's all moved on and stuff. Should've known that to be a sign that this guy just isn't going to leave our lives.

I know, I should just pray.

But still - this guy is creepy and his spiritual baggage has, at times, exuded into our home - after all, the fall that his wife left him was the fall that porn came back into our home. Spiritual influence? Who knows. I do know this - I'm not happy at the prospect of spiritual warfare in my own backyard again.