the headless snowman & other funny tales

if you're a long-time follower of one-eyed wonder, you'll know b and i have been blessed to have some pretty crazy apartment-neighbors. [see: example a and example b.] most of these stories involve cats and odd pot-smoking single women.

in orem, we live on the top floor, so sadly there are no crazy cat ladies living above us. it has taken five months, but we've finally discovered something even better than a cat neighbor: the snowman drama downstairs.

we don't really know any of our neighbors here but have seen them around and delegated nicknames. the people who live directly below us are named 'ariel + husband' [the chick's name isn't actually ariel, but b heard her belting out the little mermaid soundtrack one day and it stuck]. they're nice enough; they let b borrow a wrench once, and we've smiled at each other in the parking lot.

ariel has a certain fondness for seasonal decor. every month we've lived here, her front step has been decorated with some trinket or other. scarecrow, labor day flag wreath, pilgrims, etc. a few weeks ago she put a snowman made out of white pumpkins next to her door. he was wearing a beanie and scarf and had a little painted face. not really my type of holiday display, but to each his/her own.

on sunday, we came home from church to find the snowman missing his scarf. there was also a note taped to his face in ariel's handwriting -- a full notebook-paper-page long. of course b and i read the whole thing; i SO wish i could recall the entire letter. it started off like this:

"to whom it may concern: i hope you are proud of what you've done! it's people like you that are ruining this country. why would you steal my snowman's scarf? that is rude and inconsiderate and i hope if you have children you teach them better morals than what you have. i like to put up holiday decorations and i don't know why that bothers you so much. you should leave other people alone!"

the note continued for the rest of the page; sorry i don't have more details. make them up in your head. we laughed about it and went inside and didn't think about it again [it's been in the 20s all week...we don't leave our apartment much].

yesterday i came home to eat lunch and the note was gone. also, the snowman's head was completely off and laying in the walkway! poor guy got beheaded. i was startled that the snowman war had come to blows like this. when i left to go back to work an hour later, his head was replaced.

and THEN. when i got home last night, the head was back on the sidewalk. we have a snowman civil war going on! i texted b the update and he requested a photo, which is what you see at the top of this post. poor little guy. i'm kind of hoping the next installment of this story involves a baseball bat, but i'll keep you posted.

p.s. just to keep things in the jovial mood, here's another humorous anecdote for you:
last night while we were sleeping b kicked/kneed me no less than four times. of course i kicked back every time, but i was still annoyed. this morning:
l: you're in trouble.
b: why?? what'd i do?
l: you kicked me the whole night last night!
b: sorry, i had a dream about hitler. what else do you expect me to do?