Years and years ago, we lived in the country -- we bought an old farm on 40 acres and planned to live a 'Mother Earth' type of lifestyle. Good thing we tried it or I would have spent te rest of my life fantasizing about it......but I hated every blade of grass on that 40 acres. But we had bought the house so didn't have a lot of choice. One of the reasons for moving out there was a craving for quiet -- one night we were kept awake by the neighbors' dogs barking literally all night. Called over the next morning to be told they weren't her dogs, they were her boyfriend's dogs (what the hell difference that made.....). We were bathing our daughter that night when he knocked on our front door and told us if we ever complained about his dogs again he would burn our fucking house down (and I quote).

As I hated the country, hated being at home with a small child, hated not working etc etc this visit quickly helped us make our decision which was to get the hell out of town. We moved back to the city, I started to work again (yes!!!!) but it took us a while to sell the house. So we rented it out to someone we knew just a little. Sitting in Portland one Sunday morning, we saw the name of our old town in the paper and the word MURDER next to it. Turned out the person who owned the neighboring house was having an affair with our tenant. The boyfriend (he of the -- call again and I will burn your fucking house down) had cut the phone wires in the house, and shot randomly through the front door killing our tenants ten year old. Have never quite had a cheery comfort over neighbors ever since and am so grateful that we have lived in the same house for 20 years with the same great neighbors on eachside............