Funny story

 We are home for the weekend because some of the kids wanted the cottage.  I have two neighbours - Mr Right, and Mr. Left.  They are both mid-80's.  mr has Alzies, and ml has had a new knee put in.

ml is getting new stones put in, and since he was a contractor, he is giving the workers a heck of time yelling at them from his balcony.  They knew him, and have a contract.  They do their work and ignore him.  All of a sudden, I'm mowing the front lawn and he yells at me to measure my front steps, because he thinks his steps are wrong.  I yell back that I'm busy.  Then I get worried, stop the mower, and go get my tape measure.  I didn't want him coming over with his bum knee.

I measure the heights and go over to him.  He has gone down all his stairs with his cane and is making his way over the construction site.  I tell him I measured it, and don't want him to fall into a hole.  He says, 'I'm going to measure it.'

His goes through the construction, and climbs up the steep lawn to my steps.  Measures and gets exactly the same I got.  Ok, you go back, I said, and he did. -- Whew.

I do more mowing, and he is back in his balcony seat.  I look around and to my horror, mr is shuffling down the road like Tim Conway doing the old man schtick.  He never leaves his porch.  I run up to him and say "i'm telling your wife.".  He says "She's not here."  Dang.

He shuffles up my driveway and walks across the front to see ml.  I yell, "mr!  ml is here to see you, Come on down."  He says "My knee hurts, and I'm not coming down.  I did enough walking."  Dang.

I say to mr - Could you stop please?  He keeps going and says "ml has enough insurance."  I yell to ml, "mr is coming to charge you 2 million dollars, by falling down your hole"  ml just yells - "No damn way!, and just sits there".  This is getting nuts.

All the time he was shuffling, mr was complaining that the doctor took away his driver's licence, 'Because I might start forgetting, some time.  Ha!"  I ask "Are you going to fall into that hole?"  He says "i'm not stupid."  He asks the worker for some of the plastic netting on the stones.  He was always the neighbourhood scrounger.  He says it's for the rabbits.

"Let me take that netting for you."  His grip is like the famous 'cold, dead hands'.  "Okay, let's just turn around."  "Where am I going?", he asks.

I get him to the end of my driveway.  I say, now it's the city, and not my insurance.  He goes back up the street, and says "Where do I go now?" at his own driveway.  I lead him up, and he wants to dump the netting in his backyard, which has a horrible little ramp down.  I open his gate, and say goodbye.  I watch from my yard, and he is just throwing the netting, and fiddling with the gate to close it.  I think he was putting me on the whole time.