That’s a dilly of a pickle.

Yann pointed to a row of pickle jars on the bottom shelf at the supermarket and asked, “Have we had these? Where they good?”

“You may remember me from such hamburger toppings as…”

I couldn’t remember whether these pickles were worth a second pick: I wouldn’t call myself a pickle enthusiast. I like them, but my love is reserved for other foods. Rather, I’m your Simpsons references specialist.

I need to try peering outside at random more often. This afternoon, there was a box spring leaning against the wall in the hallway. Later on, while Yann was peeping out the window, presumably because he had heard something, he watched a guy carry the boxspring outside. After dumping it behind the building, the guy squeezed his biceps as he walked away, in total admiration of how much sexier he had gotten. He was wearing a t-shirt with OGM printed on it, Yann noted.

“Oh God My!?” I asked.

A little later, Yann announced that he saw a woman chase away a deer with a cricket bat.

For sure, I have found that our neighbours are more eccentric compared to past neighbours. They also appear to be chatty. Not to me, of course, but to my less-chatty-but-easier-to-chat-with boyfriend, Yann.

Yann and I have come up with a loose storyline for the guy who lives in the adjacent building. If you think this is creepy of us, do understand that his suite sits slightly higher up than ours, giving him a much better view inside our place than we have of his. Yann and I only know the drama that happens from chest-up.

In the early stages of the pandemic, his girlfriend moved in. She contributed to the decor with a grandma-style pendant floor lamp, with the tassel lamp shade. A piece of sheer purple fabric was draped over the lampshade, suggesting that she was a fortune teller.

Last month, Yann heard crashing noises outside that he didn’t think required immediate investigation. When he looked out a few minutes later, he found assorted household objects strewn all over the alleyway, including a toilet plunger. Shortly after, our subject of interest came outside to retrieve said objects. A week later, it was apparent they had a breakup-worthy fight, and she moved out.

So, I was wrong, she wasn’t a fortune teller.

I make sure the protagonist of our story doesn’t know I have a blog by never having my laptop screen face his window. I don’t know if he owns binoculars, but because I do, I must assume that others do too.

There’s a guy across the street who owns a brass vuvuzela. He was using it to thank healthcare workers nightly until he retired it two months ago. But, now I’m able to recognize him even without his vuvuzela. He has the generic mall Santa look to him, akin to our other white-bearded Boomer neighbours, so that isn’t an easy feat.

Also, I don’t like looking at the faces of strangers because I’m scared they’ll start talking to me.

Next door to vuvuzela guy lives a woman who is spectacularly terrible (but careful!) at parking her car on the street. After months of practice, she is still a terrible parker.

There’s also the guy who takes his ebike out on short rides suspiciously often. But, who says you can’t deal drugs on an ebike? My cannabis dealer from my Vancouver days was making deliveries via a regular bike. It was certainly more convenient than picking up my weed from a Canada Post outlet.

So… I guess I still don’t have much going on personally. I’m Harriet the Spy now.