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Spyin' on the Neighbors

The neighbors have a light on in their kitchen.

As far as I know, this has never happened before.

My family have lived in our current residence for four and a half years. The house next door has been occupied by the same residents since before we moved in. There's a large window that faces our house and its blinds are always closed. I see it every time I open the fridge because their window faces a window in our kitchen.

I have never, ever seen a light on behind those blinds before tonight. Never.

The layout of the neighbors' house is significantly different from ours, and to my mind that room was always a living room, which in retrospect was a silly assumption because I'd have expected to see the flickering of a TV behind the blinds. But the room has always been dark. And, come to think of it, there's a space upstairs which I've always assumed was the end of a hallway, but you can tell at night that it definitely has a TV in it.

Look, I'm not good at spying on the neighbors. In fact, as I write this, I realize that I could turn off our lights and use the cover of darkness to peer into that upstairs room with binoculars if I realy wanted to. But I don't because generally speaking spying on other people going about their normal business is more boring than going about your own normal business.

Anyway, it's the night before Thanksgiving and their driveway is full of cars. They always seem to host a large group of people for a few days around major holidays. The kitchen light is on and the blinds are open, and I'm trying not to look (not obviously, anyway) but somebody who doesn't live there is preparing food. And it feels very, very weird because I've never seen a light on in that room before.

It all seems so unlikely. I go into the kitchen several times every evening, and during this part of the year that always means turning on a light. But these people order food more than anyone else I've ever met. Sometimes our driveway gets blocked by a Doordasher because another Doordasher (sometimes two!) is already parked in theirs. There are five adults living in the house and it feels like they order food multiple times per person per day. We regularly watch delivery drivers turn into the wrong driveway out of habit and try to deliver our food to the neighbors. Just this afternoon I had to tell a guy from Pizza Pit that he'd come to the wrong house (must be new to his job), and a little later I had to wait for Pizza Hut to vacate our driveway before I could get out. My wife is very sick of this, but I find it only to be a minor annoyance. Possibly I'm too conflict-averse, and having lived here for almost five years without meeting them it seems extremely gauche to open our first conversation by casting aspersions on their eating habits.

The main thing, though, is that it's just really, really weird to see that light on after all this time. So weird that I put almost six hundred words into thinking about it, which is also just so weird.

Update, December 7, 2024 - The lights are still on and the blinds are still open after a week. This is the new norm. I'd wager that the lights will burn out before those blinds close.