It was my wife who first noticed it – the For Sale sign in the empty lot across the street from our house.  It just appeared one day,  like a toadstool springing up in the middle of the yard after a rainy night – and I think Kathy had to take a second look to make certain that she wasn’t seeing things. But yes, it’s really there – and we are sad.  It’s not that we’re unneighborly people;  we feel very fortunate to have very nice people on every side of us – in many ways, we’ve hit the jackpot in that respect – and who’s to say that whoever would buy this lot and build a house on it might not be perfectly nice people. . . maybe nicer than us, even!

But the point is that where now there is this wonderful patch of wild greenery – about as good a taste as one can have of untamed wilderness in a city of 80,000 people.   I think the only sign of civilization to be found on this lot is a fire hydrant next to the curb that is completely hidden from view by the vegetation which has sprung up around it.   Otherwise,  it’s a wonderful little bit of God’s Little Green Earth, and we like it that way.  .  . which is why we are less than excited about the prospect of someone purchasing this lot and building a house on it – even if they were the loveliest people ever born and the nicest neighbors one could ask for.

So naturally,  I have been trying to think of some ways that we can discourage anyone from buying the lot and building on it.  Some possibilities I’m contemplating:

  1. *I might park my car right on the curb.  One look at my little landfill-on-wheels and they may lose their appetite for the neighborhood.

  1. * I might put BEWARE OF MAD DOGS signs on our yard – and just to get our dogs barking around the clock, we’ll put on a DVD of the Dog Whisperer and leave it on continuous play.

  1. * I might get some chalk and draw a couple of body-shape outlines on the pavement, to make it look like the scene of a recent crime.

  1. * I might haul a couple of rusty metal barrels into the middle of the lot, and paint the symbol for Hazardous Materials on the side of them.

  1. * I might open the window in my studio and teach voice lessons -all hours of the day and night –  alternating between a 73-year- old wobbly soprano singing “The Rose” – a half step sharp –  and a 16-year-old rock star wannabe screaming “You raise me up” – a half step flat.

  1. * I might plant poison ivy and poison oak all over the lot, so their first visit to the lot is likely to be unpleasant – and very likely their last.  (I thought about sending away for Scorpions through the mail – or venomous snakes – but it’s not in the budget.)

  1. * I might purchase several junk cars – and maybe a rusty tractor or two and have them towed into our driveway.

  1. * Erect a sign in the middle of the lot that reads DO NOT FEED THE BEARS.

  1. * Deposit empty beer cans around our front porch – along with a couple of empty bags of Pork Rinds – to give any prospective buyers a sense of the kind of parties we throw on a regular basis.

And if we get too desperate:

  1. * I can always take my least favorite recording:  opera singer Dame Gwyneth Jones wobbling her way through “Memories” from Cats . . .  and play it 24/7 at full blast, with speakers placed strategically at our open living room windows.

But let’s hope that the difficult economy in which we all find ourselves will be enough to discourage any would-be buyers – at least until the brush grows so tall that the sign is completely hidden from view!

And if on the other hand the lot does sell and we find ourselves with new neighbors across the street,  we’ll just have to swallow our disappointment and hope that they’re as nice as all of our other neighbors.  And we will try to remember that once upon a time,  we bought a lot very much like the one in question and had the audacity to build a house on it.