Thursday, March 19, 2009

Just A Little Annoyed With My Neighbors

I am very fond of my neighbors, we have become good friends over the years we've lived on our little road. I watch their house, they watch mine. I feed their cats, they let my dogs out for a walk. We share pizza and beer. I asked if they could water my plants while I was on vacation and keep an eye on the house in case we had an unexpected freaky freeze. I did not want any burst pipes. They said sure. I said thanks.

BUT I am annoyed right now at this moment.
I have in a cabinet in my kitchen an assortment of liquor. It ranges from various disgusting bottles of flavored Schnapps left at my house after a few summer BBQ's and parties to some fortified wines that I use for cooking to some very nice gin and single malt scotch I got as holiday presents. Last night I really wanted a nice drink. I decided on a glass of whiskey. Imagine my UNHAPPY surprise when I opened up that cabinet only to find the inexpensive bottle of whiskey with far less in it than had been when I went away and my very expensive bottle of whiskey and gin both gone. I can only make this assumption. My neighbors probably had a mini party one night and ran out of booze after the liquor store closed. They probably came over to my house and "borrowed" my liquor. Now if they had taken the Schapps (which I don't drink or use in cooking and they like things like peach schnapps) or the mediocre Vodka, that would not have been so bad. But I'm assuming they took the whiskey and gin and did not bother to 1) tell me they did this or 2) leave me cash for the alcohol consumed. It's either they took it, their teenaged kids took it, or someone robbed my house of only those two bottles of booze and drank down the other bottle.
To give you an idea, the bottle of whiskey retails for about $80 and I can't always find it locally. It was a gift at Christmas. The gin retails for $40 and I can find it locally, but because of the price I don't buy it on a regular basis, that too was a gift at Christmas. I have some very nice friends who happily buy these bottles for me for Christmas and my birthday.
I had only had about 3 small glasses from the whiskey bottle and the gin was unopened. I called over to the neighbors (it was after 8:30 PM and I was already in my jammies) got the answering machine and left a message asking if they had "borrowed" the liquor and could they return the bottles. Just to let you know, they had done this one other time, but left me a note stating they took some vodka and tequila.
No return message, no e-mail, no running over with the remainders, no one calling back to say NOT ME! I admit I am making an assumption that it was my neighbor or her husband that came over and "borrowed" the booze or it was one of her teenaged kids who did the same. As far as I know, no one else was in the house while I was away. I also did not open the liquor cabinet to count my inventory when I came back from my trip. No need to, I wasn't using any of that liquor for cooking or drinking. AND the kicker is, if it was my neighbors who did take it, I know they really don't like gin and whiskey-they much prefer things like Vodka, Schnapps and really bad American Bourbons.

Now I guess it's a wait and see kind of a deal. I'm heading off tonight for my weekend job. I'll be back on Sunday and I'm going to see if somehow the bottle magically re-appears or if an explanation is given yea or nay. It would have been nice of them to at least tell me they did this..........grrr

4 comments:

The Chief's Chef said...

I could never take something from someone's house!

Dawn said...

Ouch! That is really terrible. I would never do that to someone. Talk about a way to potentially spoil a friendship. And even if they planned on "returning" them, it isn't the same. I have a bottle of wine that I was given for my birthday. I've been saving it. If someone took it and offered to replace it with the same kind, it still wouldn't be the same to me.

Shevy said...

It's awful because now you feel like you can't trust them (and I'd be wondering if anything else was missing). But it's also weird because it sounds like you had other liquor that's more typical of their taste, yet only the good stuff is missing.

You know, you drink the Crown Royal I'm not going to let you have a key anymore. You touch the MacAllan and you're toast! But why would someone who likes c*** take the good stuff when they probably can't even taste the difference?

Bouncing Back said...

The kicker is since I don't have things in the cabinet that are, ah, lower end, save for the party leftovers, they probably just thought Hey, I'll take this! And yes, probably poured the single malt into a bottle of diet coke. I don't drink hard liquor on a regular basis at home and when I do drink it, I like to have the "good stuff". It becomes a treat. I will have wine or beer with my evening meals.

I did check the house to see if things like my change jar, jewlery was missing in case I had been broken into while I was on vacation and some one was looking for fast cash items. As far as I can tell, nothing else is missing, so again, based on past history, I can only assume they "popped over" to raid my liquor closet and have neglected to 'fess up' about it, OR tell me that they did not do it.

But yes, I am a bit disappointed that they have not even responded to me about this one way or another.