The Covid Crazies

Pandemics really suck ass you guys. Breaking news, I know. But I’ll tell you straight to your face that I don’t enjoy them. I’m super blunt like that.

As Meredith and I pushed our way into the second trimester—which I found to be one of the best trimesters, definitely top three—the mental toll of the pandemic started to hit not only us, but everyone around us.

We live in a fairly high-population-density area in Santa Monica surrounded by apartment buildings and retirement communities and beachfront high-rises. All the rich-bitch mansions are just a few blocks north of us, but we’re in a neighborhood full of small families or young professionals not yet rich enough to purchase that first home, especially in expensive-ass Los Angeles.

It’s generally a friendly community full of happy people waving to us and telling us how amazing our dog, Maple, is. “We know. She’s an absolute perfect angel in dog form,” we’d say back, just as she licked a worm off the sidewalk and stuck her nose up another dog’s ass.  

But as the pandemic progressed, we started to notice that our neighbors were more on edge, a little more hostile, a little less likely to wave, more likely to shoot us a dirty look. I guess if people spend a year locked down—unable to see friends or loved ones, while being told that every single stranger they meet might be harboring a deadly disease—we’re bound to start hating each other.  

Personally, Meredith and my relationship was doing okay. I continued mostly working out of a co-working space a couple of blocks away called One Piece. So I wasn’t around the condo during the day to fart up the joint and make crass jokes, leaving Meredith, who I call “The Business Bear” when she’s working, to focus on doing her business. But we were starting to bicker a little more, the pandemic catching up to us as well. Nothing major. Just those little squabbles that you sometimes get into with someone you’ve spent an ungodly amount of time with, no matter how much you love them.   

I’d give our teammate and getting along abilities like a seven out of ten during this stretch: better than most, not as good as some.  

We were trying our best to stay relaxed and calm so Meredith could focus all her energy on growing our little beautiful, perfect baby boy. We lit candles and watched Netflix to calm ourselves, creating a sort of Zen-like environment full of peace and love and all that California, hippie-dippy bullshit. 

Then one morning while I was at One Piece—already hard at work crafting yet another perfect screenplay that will eventually blow people’s minds and change the landscape of the whole film industry—our little bubble or serenity was burst.

The Business Bear was working at our kitchen table—where she had set up her workstation at the onset of the pandemic—when she heard a couple of men talking outside the windows running along the side of our apartment. Meredith turned to see who it was. The guy talking was an older man in his seventies—let’s call him Moe—who managed and owned the building adjacent to ours, but also lived in the unit directly facing into our kitchen and living room windows. We had never talked to Moe, but often saw him around his building making repairs, sweeping, hosing stuff down. Shit people who own apartment buildings do.

After Meredith turned and saw that it was Moe, she returned her focus back to her business like a good Business Bear, thinking nothing of it.

But then, out of nowhere, Moe yelled, “Fuck you.” Meredith turned back and saw that he had raised both his middle fingers and had them aimed right at her. “Fuck you, you fucking bitch,” he said.

Now, Meredith comes from Sopranos Country in New Jersey—a place where when someone calls you a ‘bitch’ and yells ‘fuck you’ at you, you don’t just smile back and move along with your day. So Meredith slid open the window and said, “Excuse me? What did you say?”

Moe doubled down, telling her to fuck off, that she and her whole family were always watching him, laughing at him. He’s sick of it, so she could just get fucked.

“My whole family? It’s just me, my husband, and our dog in here,” said Meredith.

“Well still, fuck you,” he said, grumbling as he walked away, probably to fix a toilet or some shit.

Now, Meredith is a warrior, just a complete badass, one of the toughest women I’ve ever met in my life, one you’d be lucky to have on your side. But she was also several months pregnant, trying her best to create that healthy and relaxing home for our growing baby. The whole Zen-environment thing personified. So when Moe verbally assaulted her—and unprovoked, mind you—instead of becoming angry, she just got really upset, emotional. Here she was, in her own condo, minding her own business, just trying to get through another workday, and some douchebag was yelling ‘Fuck yous’ and calling her a ‘bitch’. Unreal.

Moreover, she instantly felt unsafe in her own home. It’s pretty crazy for someone to just randomly shout obscenities at someone else. It implies that they might be mentally unwell. One shitty aspect of America is that you never know who might own a gun. This Moe guy seemed like someone who might have one, and, for that matter, might be crazy enough to use it. So Meredith got really nervous.

I came home from One Piece to find her really upset, hiding out, with all the shades down, lights mostly off.

“I’m legitimately scared of him,” said Meredith. “That was so unhinged.”

“That old son of a bitch,” I said. “Should I go talk to him?”

Meredith shook her head, said that he was just crazy, that he’d just yell at me and it wouldn’t fix anything, that we just had to ignore him. Now, I’m pretty much a conflict-adverse coward, so I was relieved that Meredith didn’t want me to go over and kick his ass or something. I mean, he probably would’ve kicked mine, which would’ve been rather embarrassing. But I was upset too. Yelling at a pregnant woman? What the fuck was the matter with him?

“I should kick his ass,” I concluded, trying to fake like I was some tough guy, like I maybe had a little bit of Sopranos in me.

“No, we just have to ignore him. I’m scared of him now,” said Meredith.

So that’s what we did.

We did what we thought was the bigger thing and just tried to shut him out of our lives. We moved Meredith’s office from the kitchen into the guestroom. It would be a better place for The Business Bear to do her business anyway. Then, we decided to install those cool top-down, bottom-up accordion blinds, so we could still get some sunlight in our condo without risking a Moe sighting or outburst.

With the new shades up, Moe was officially blocked, like he was on a social media app instead of existing in the real world.

We moved on with our lives, continued working and getting ready for the baby, back to creating that Zen-like environment.  

I had purchased Meredith a Ring doorbell camera for Christmas. Sort of a lame gift, I know. But shopping for someone you’ve been with for several years gets increasingly hard, and Meredith had mentioned that she thought Ring doorbells were cool. I figured with the baby coming we might want to feel that extra sense of security and safety, especially given the Moe drama.

We hadn’t set the Ring up yet because I was laid up for a few weeks following my gallbladder surgery, and also because I’m terrible at doing handyman things like installing Ring doorbell cameras. “Handyman Dan” would be a terribly inaccurate nickname for me. So I called a tech to come install it.

He did. It worked great. We were excited. We felt safer. If Moe was coming to shoot us, at least we’d have it on camera!

With the new Moe-blocking blinds and doorbell, things were good.

But a few days after we had the doorbell installed, we noticed a note taped to our door. We checked the camera and saw that the woman who was renting the unit next to ours had placed it there. This woman—we’ll call her Tanya—mostly kept to herself, was super quiet, almost invisible. Because of her quiet ways, she was sort of the perfect neighbor: never complaining about all the noise we made during Maple’s Ball Mania, while also not making any of her own. We liked Tanya.  

We read the note.

Because the camera also faced her door, Tanya said that she thought the doorbell was a violation of her privacy and asked if we’d take it down. Now, we didn’t even think to ask her if it was okay if we put it up. But we had asked the HOA President, and she said it was fine. So we were a little surprised Tanya had an issue with it. If anything, we thought she might also like the added security.

But she wasn’t a fan. I get it. Privacy is a big issue for some people, even if it’s not for us. 

Now, I had spent around 400 bucks all-in for the doorbell and tech installation. Plus, I had to buy a Google Nest hub to function as the ringer. So I wasn’t crazy about just eating the cost of the doorbell, especially since we were looking down the barrel of all the looming childcare expenses.  

But we also wanted to be good neighbors. Shit like Karma is a real thing in our books, and figured it was bad Karma to leave it up against Tanya’s will. It was something we should’ve thought to check with her beforehand. We hadn’t, so it was my mistake. So the compromise Meredith and I came up with was that we’d take the doorbell camera down if Tanya covered the cost to have it uninstalled and our old doorbell replaced, around 50 bucks or so.

I realized that this might have been an unreasonable request. But we figured, why not ask. I mean, we were within our rights to put it up in the first place, and she was the one who had the problem with it. If she thought that was unfair or unreasonable, we’d still just take it down. No problem.  

I figured it was better to chat in person, so I could act like the nice-guy neighbor, tap into her humanistic side. Hell, maybe she’d hear our explanation for putting it up and decide it was fine. So I asked Tanya if she’d meet me out front of our building.

We put on masks and went outside. I told her that we were having a baby soon, and that we had gotten the camera mostly for added security and safety. But said that we’d take it down if she really wanted us to. Then, I brought up the idea of her covering the cost to uninstall it.

“You know what? Keep it up. You’re having a baby. I get it. No problem,” I half-expected her to say. 

But instead, Tanya flashed red, looking like she might literally rip my head off. “I’m sorry. What? No way. You want me to pay to have it uninstalled? That’s absolutely insane. Crazy.”

She spent the next ten minutes yelling at me, telling me that I was crazy, that I was insane, that I was violating her privacy, that she’d go to the HOA Board, that she’d get the police involved if necessary.

I had clearly struck a nerve.

“It’s a violation of my privacy. You’re filming inside my apartment,” she screamed. And I’m not exaggerating. She was yelling like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.   

“We’re not filming inside your apartment. We’re filming our door, and only when there’s a noise,” I said.

“It’s still a violation of my privacy,” she screeched. “Then you’re asking me to pay for it? That’s crazy. You’re crazy.”

“Look, like I said, we put it up because we’re having a baby and wanted a touch more security. We didn’t put it up to spy on you. No offense, but we don’t give a shit about what you’re up to. Like not even a little bit,” I said.

“If you don’t feel safe here, then move,” she roared.

“We just bought this place. We’re not moving,” I said. “I said we’d take it down. We’re just asking for you to cover the uninstall. Fifty bucks. That’s the compromise.”

“Insane,” she yelled. “You’re insane.”

Now, I’m a pretty calm person generally, but if someone is yelling at me that I’m insane, I don’t tend to enjoy that. I also don’t like it when a person’s level of anger exceeds what is reasonable given a certain situation. Like, if we had purposely smeared Maple shit across her door, I get it, yell at me and call me ‘insane’ all you want. But innocently putting up a doorbell so we felt safer? That to me doesn’t warrant Hulk-like anger and shouting about how insane I am. I mean, give me a fucking break.  

So instead of being a nice-guy neighbor like I was planning on being, I decided that if she was going to be an asshole, I was going to be one right back. “Cool, well we’re going to just leave it up then,” I said.

“I’ll get the HOA involved and then police after that,” she barked.  

“Yeah, great. Go ahead and do that. We got HOA approval for the doorbell. We’re pals with everyone on the Board. Plus, we own our unit. You’re a renter. They’re going to side with us. But sure, do all of those things if you want to waste your time and energy,” I said.

Now, for whatever reason, she really took offense to me calling her a ‘renter’, like it was a racial slur or derogatory term some shit. “Renter? Oh okay. So it’s like that?”

“I’m just stating the facts. You rent. We own. We’ll win this fight,” I said, feeling a little bit like a Soprano. Old Danny Boy Soprano over here.

Tanya stormed off, slamming her door. She then ran upstairs to our neighbors on the floor above us, who she’s pals with, and preceded to scream about how insane I was, how I had called her a “renter”. Blah. Blah. Blah.

“What a fucking waste of time,” I mumbled as I walked back inside, almost giggling to myself that I had been yelled at over something as trivial as a fucking doorbell. Adulthood had never felt more real or more ridiculous.

“Well, how’d it go? I take it not well given the door slams?” Meredith asked.

“It went as bad as it could have,” I said. I relayed the convo, noted that I’d been bitched out for ten minutes about how insane I was, about how I was violating her privacy, about how she was going to call the police.

Meredith and I looked at each other in shock.

“Man, this pandemic is just making people insane,” I said. “The Covid Crazies.”

“Yeah, it’s just terrible,” said Meredith. “It’s what happens when people are locked in their houses for a year.”

Here we had a neighbor yelling unprovoked ‘Fuck yous’ at Meredith on one side, then a brat throwing a tantrum about a doorbell on the other. We were surrounded.  

“We’re leaving that fucking doorbell up. Fuck that piece of shit,” I said.

But as Tanya yelled and stomped around, slamming doors—all of which we had on camera thanks to our handy doorbell—logical, level-headed Meredith decided that we couldn’t live in such a hostile environment, that we should just take the doorbell down, try to restore the peace and return to the Zen-like, stress-free environment we were trying to cultivate while Meredith was pregnant.

So I emailed Tanya, since talking face-to-face hadn’t worked, told her we’d take the doorbell down and eat the cost, that we were sorry for the inconvenience we had caused her.

She had won.

I was able to figure out how to uninstall the Ring all on my own (not to brag). Old Handyman Dan over here. I put our old, non-camera doorbell back up.

“The fucking Covid Crazies,” I said.

But there was a silver lining to this mess. In the weeks after the fights with Tanya and Moe, Meredith and I became closer than ever. Our teammate and getting along abilities back to a full ten out of ten. Sure these unnecessary battles with our cranky neighbors were shitty, but they had reminded us that we were on the same side, that it was Us vs. The World. We stopped the light bickering, started aiming any aggression or hostilities outward. This strengthening of our relationship felt like it was especially well-timed given that we were about to become parents, that we, more than ever, had to be on the same page, that we were in this together.

“The doorbell and Moe shit sure did suck ass,” I said. “But I love you more than ever.”

“Me too. I love you more than ever,” said The Business Bear. “And Karma will get those sons of bitches. I just know it.”

“Yeah, Karma’s gonna kick their dicks in,” I said.

The next few weeks were quiet around our place. We ultimately felt good about how we had handled everything, like we had done the right, neighborly thing. Sure, in retrospect I probably shouldn’t have asked Tanya to pay to have our doorbell uninstalled. And we should’ve checked with her before installing it in the first place. But we took it down promptly upon her request, giving her her precious privacy back. And we hadn’t confronted Moe about his shitty behavior, leaving that old man to grumble away his days in peace.

More time passed, and we realized that we hadn’t seen or heard Moe around at all. Meredith decided that she’d Google his name.

And, I shit you not, the first thing that popped up was his obituary.

Moe had fucking died.

“Whoa, did you kill him?” I asked.

“Ha, no. Apparently, he had cancer,” said Meredith.

But I teased Meredith, joked that she had been blessed with Pregnancy Powers given to her by the Karma Gods to help her protect her child from all evils, and used those powers to will Moe to death.

“Stop. That’s absurd. He was just old. Had cancer. Old people with cancer die,” she said.  

But instead of stopping, I smirked and made up a song to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, similar to Dwight’s “Ryan Started the Fire” hymn from The Office.

“Meredith killed the neighbor. His name was Moe. And he had to go. Meredith killed the neighbor,” I sang over and over again.

“Stop that. I didn’t do anything. He just died,” she said. “But he shouldn’t have fucked with The Business Bear. Not while I’m pregnant.”

“Yeah, he shouldn’t have activated those Pregnancy Powers,” I said.

We obviously felt bad about Moe’s passing, even if he had screamed obscenities at Meredith. He was probably on some intense medication and chemotherapy that caused his outburst. I’m sure he was ultimately a nice man who was just taking out all the Covid and cancer aggressions on Meredith.

“Meredith killed the neighbor. His name was Moe. And he had to go. Meredith killed the neighbor,” I sang.

As for Tanya, we haven’t heard a peep out of her since the doorbell fight. She actively avoided us for about a month. Like we didn’t see her once. I think she was embarrassed by her behavior, that she had lost her temper and started slamming doors, that she had blown her lid over something small and silly.

Or maybe she heard about Moe and is scared of Meredith’s Pregnancy Powers.