Being neighborly is considered a good thing by almost everyone, but there’s always gotta be one person who lives to pee in the neighborhood pool, right?
OP lives in a cold climate, and when he goes out on cold and/or snowy nights to put his wife’s windshield wipers up – so they aren’t frozen to her car in the morning before work – he walks around to his 5 or so neighbors and does the same for them.
I (59M) live in a major city in Ontario, Canada. I live in a small subdivision and have 5 neighbors total on my street.
For the past few years during the winter when we’re getting a lot of snow or a bad storms, as I’m leaving for my overnight shift at around 8-9pm I’ll put my wifes windshield wipers up on her car and do a quick walk around to my other 5 neighbors and put their windshield wipers up on their cars (obviously not if they’re outside or something, but if it looks like they’re in for the night).
Many of them forget to do this, as many of them have children and it typically slips their mind, and their wipers will be frozen to their car in the morning.
It’s just something nice I like to do to look out for my neighbors. They’re all always grateful of this and thank me for it. Many of them started doing it too and there will be nights where I’ll forget to put mind and my wifes up, and in the morning one of the neighbors has done it for us.
Then someone new moved in next door. The first time he was doing wipers he hesitated, since he hadn’t spent much time with them, but decided to go ahead and do it.
Anyway recently one of our neighbor’s moved and a new family moved in as of last week. It’s a young couple and their two young children. The other night I was leaving for my overnight shift at around 9pm. It was snowing really heavy and we were supposed to be getting almost 30cm of snow and it was FREEZING out. So I put my wifes wipers up and do my usual quick walk around to the other neighbors.
I was hesitant when I reached my new neighbors house, as I’ve only introduced myself once, but did it anyway.
The people who lived there took issues, running out and screaming at him to stay away from their stuff – and they continued even after he explained what he was doing.
As I was putting the second wiper up on their pick up truck the husband came charging out of his front door yelling “HEY WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU DOING TO MY TRUCK?” I tried to explain to him I was just putting his wipers up to help him.
He continued to scream at me to “get the hell off my property and don’t touch my s*%t AGAIN!”. The wife then came out and started yelling at me too.
I apologized and started walking away. Some of my other neighbors heard the commotion and came outside to see what was happening. They tried explaining to him too that it’s just something we do, both of them wasn’t having it.
So, when everyone else was on their merry way in the morning but his neighbor was struggling to defrost the car with a bunch of kids and the start of school bearing down, OP shrugged and refused her request for help.
After all, they’d told him not to touch their cars.
Fast forward to this morning, I’m arriving home from my overnight shift and as I’m walking in I see the wife of this couple struggling outside to break the ice off the windshield wipers of the truck. Guess she was trying to take her kids to school and the wipers were frozen solid on the car.
She sees me and yells over “Hey there! Do you mind giving me a hand please?”
I look over to her and yell back “No sorry, thought I was to never touch your s*%t again ma’am” and walked back inside.
She yelled back at me “wow AH!”.
Did OP take it too far, like his wife thinks, or just far enough?
Told my wife about this, she thinks I should’ve helped her because she was just trying to get her kids to school.
I disagree as I was just following what they told me.
Let’s find out what Reddit thinks!
The top comment pointed out that the wife’s reaction in the morning should have been his answer.
Image Credit: Reddit
This person says some people can never admit their mistakes.
Image Credit: Reddit
They say some people never learn – because they don’t want to.
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This commenter says anyone being that rude isn’t going to do an about-face overnight (or ever).
Image Credit: Reddit
And no matter how they get the initial reaction, no one can excuse the continued berating.
Image Credit: Reddit
This guy was well within his rights.
The neighbors owe him an apology. Yesterday.