Where the hell does my neighbor go?

Let's play a fun game. It's called: where the hell does my neighbor go?

There it is, in all its loud, obnoxious glory,
stuffed to the gills with useless crap.

He moved in next door 4 months ago, and took it upon himself to claim a space in OUR driveway for his '94 Toyota Corolla station wagon, which is filled to the brim with useless bags and other crap.

It wouldn't be a problem, except that his muffler is broken. So each morning, the ground rattles and windows shake in announcement of his departure. He is home all day except for intervals during which he does mystery activities that take approximately 14 minutes to accomplish.

6:17am: leaves.
6:29am: returns.
7:39am: leaves.
8:17am: returns.
10:34am: leaves.
10:52am: returns. And so on...

It goes on all day. Sometimes he's gone a few hours, sometimes a few minutes. What does this man do? He can't be working--the hours are too erratic. Buying drugs? Selling drugs? Buying booze? (Yes, every example I can come up with involves socially unacceptable and/or illegal behavior.)

One day, K and I followed him. We didn't MEAN to, but we happened to be pulling out of our driveway seconds after he did and ran into him at the gas station. There he was, leaning up against the sandwich stand, fervently scratching off lotto tickets.

Lotto tickets? I hope you win a million dollars so you can fix that GD muffler.

It's a mystery, folks. Now make like Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick. WHAT does this man DO?

Dirty dirty sex, or a dirty dirty pig.

My sister and future brother in law (JB--short for Johnny Bananas) have a new neighbor. A short, hairy, oinky new neighbor.

That's right... a pig.

The kicker is that they live in an apartment. And so do the people next to them, who own the pig. They also have three kids and a dog.

What is this, a clown car? Where do you fit all of these creatures?

JB told my sister a few weeks ago that he thought he heard squeaking, or some odd noise coming from the neighboring apartment. My sister told him he was crazy... until she saw the hog for herself. Standing in her upstairs bathroom a few days later, she could see down into the neighbor's back yard and noticed a wire fence, a kiddie pool, and a giant, brown PIG.

She immediately called JB and told him he had been right all along. And bowed down to his animal noise deciphering skills. Okay, maybe not so much. But still--he was RIGHT.

This was his reaction: "I knew it! I just... I heard oinking, and I thought... it's either dirty dirty sex, or a dirty dirty pig."

So until we figure out what the hell kind of circus act their neighbors have going on over there, we will continue to stand with our faces pressed up against their fence, trying to catch a glimpse of Wilbur the pig.