Back-Creek Neighbor Bev, In the Side Field, With a Creeper Van

I never know where Hick has spent the day, unless he tears himself away from reruns of The Andy Griffith Show at suppertime to tell me. He's not one for elaborating. Sometimes the stories are interesting, like his quest to buy the $200 black panther in a plate-glass case that turned out to be a $2000 spotted South American big cat. Still in a plate-glass case. 

 

Monday, Hick revealed that he had been over to see Back-Creek Neighbor Bev. She's in the process of selling her house, and having trouble settling on a realtor, having people inside her home, and moving everything out of her house. Bev marches to a different drummer. As Hick says, most people wouldn't move anything out of their house until it has sold. Yet Bev has already been asking about rates up at the storage units.

 

"Bev is killin' me! She's got her house listed for about three times what it's worth. I told her that, and she said, 'That's what it costs in Next-Door County.' And I told her, 'Yeah. But your house is in BACKROADS COUNTY! Property costs less around here. People might come look, but they'll compare prices around here, and they won't want to pay that.'

 

That's another thing. The lookin'. She thinks Sunday is the best day to show a house. I told her no, that you and me drove around on Sundays looking at property from the curb, because we knew people wouldn't bother us on a Sunday. I told her they're more likely to come on a Saturday. They'd be off work, and schedule with a realtor to see some houses. But then Bev said, 'But Saturday is my sabbath.' So I said, 'Well, around here, Sunday is most people's sabbath.' The world isn't going to adjust to your schedule." 

When Hick wants to take a jab at me, he says, "Val, you're getting as nutty as Back-Creek Neighbor Bev." Of course I tend to disagree.

"But here's her latest! You know how she is about Crazy Stick Road Man spying on her from next door. Now she thinks everybody is spying on her FOR him. And she still has those electronic mites under her skin. With all this activity about selling the house, and a couple of realtors going in, she says she can't sleep. That they're really after her now.

Bev said, 'The only way I can sleep is in my van.' So I told her, 'Well, it don't hurt nothin' to sleep in your van in the yard.' And she said, 'Oh, I can't sleep in MY yard! They know I'm there! Can I drive my van over to your field and sleep there?' So I told her okay, in the other 10 acres beside the BARn. I don't care."

"Great. Now the dogs will REALLY be barking all night! And I bet five or six people call you to report that there's a van in your field."

"No. I told her to park it out of sight, behind the cedars! She knows where the pipe is to drive in. I showed her the other day when we came over here to look at stuff in my Freight Container Garage."

I guess we have a new secret tenant. Singular, not plural. Her husband will stay in the house. So nobody breaks in and messes with it. They never leave together. One always stays home.