STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU

When you have children, you are often thrown in to the middle of arguments, such as "MOMMYMOMMYMOMMYJOHNNYTOO

KMYTOYMOMMYMOMMY!!" and "NOIDIDNT" "YESYOUDID

YOUDIDYOUDIDYOUDIDMOMMY

HEHITMEMOMMY!!" and "YOULIER!" and on and on and on until you step in, tear the teddy/car/blanket/binkie from the one hand and hand it to the other one, and then it begins all OVER again, just switching parts.

 

I'm currently in that exact same sort of dynamics with some neighbors.

People can live for years and years next door to someone without even knowing their name and have no more communication than that neighbor-acknowledgment nod when you each walk out at the same time Sunday mornings to get your newspaper from the driveway.

But out here, even though we must live much farther apart from each other- the smallest area you can have a house on has to be at least four acres - we kinda have to know each other.

- Medical emergencies. The nearest hospital is a half-hour away, and it's only been the last six years that we have been able to dial 911 and get anything other than a Mexican radio station. But even an ambulance takes a while to get here - and even longer in the monsoon.

- We have a whole lot of foot traffic through our back/front yards - illegal aliens, drug smugglers, coyotes (the human kind and the animal kind).

After ten years, our only direct contact has been with illegals who simply come to the front door and want to go back home; they've walked for miles and miles and miles before they even crossed the border into the U.S., and they are exhausted, or have been deserted by their coyote (the human kind), or separated from their group.

But we have neighbors who have been threatened by illegals - a family that lives within a mile of us was held stage at gun-point by smugglers -  cars are stolen routinely in our county.

So our concept of "neighborhood-watch" is just a little broader than it is in regular suburbs.

- We share some things that are a little immediate - water (shared wells usually between 3-5 houses), property lines (sometimes encompassing miles), dirt roads that must be maintained by us the drivers (no city, county or state maintenance... EVER).

 

So now we have a bit of a disagreement about our water well... and unfortunately, I have allowed myself to be nominated for the position of the adult, trying to get the children to 'play nicely.'

Wish me luck. (Oh, and here is the song, if you don't remember it)