2024-03-17 16:31:00
They say that money makes people change for the worse. However, I was sure that this could only happen to those who had not previously been distinguished by a modest character: they loved to brag, to seem better than they are.
And normal people, it seemed to me, would maintain their sanity despite their solid status and increased income. But I was very mistaken. Even the most reasonable people can go crazy in the face of financial well-being, and my husband and I’s dacha neighbors are living proof of this.
We have been family friends for many years. Ilona, a neighbor, and I often came to each other’s house to chat and help with the garden. We walked together with the children when they were younger. Having become teenagers, our sons began to communicate without our participation.
Ilona’s and my husbands also spent a lot of time together. We went fishing, planed and sawed something in the garage of Oleg, the neighbor’s husband. We also often gathered for barbecues.
However, this holiday season our good relationship came to an end. The fact is that Oleg received a promotion relatively recently. This had a beneficial effect on their family budget and a very bad effect on their heads.
For this occasion, the neighbors started a big construction project. Oleg and Ilona had long dreamed of building a house suitable for year-round living, but there was nowhere to get money.
One day I dropped in on Ilona to chat, as usual. She noted that their construction was progressing at an accelerated pace and began to think aloud about the upcoming housewarming party. It would be a shame not to celebrate such an event together!
The neighbor’s answer left an unpleasant aftertaste in my soul: “Well, yes, soon we will move out of this stinking birdhouse and raze it to the ground, so that nothing will remind us of the poverty in which we lived before!”
Then Ilona looked at our dacha with a contemptuous look and made it clear that we were not expected at the housewarming party. Like, there will be colleagues and some business partners of her husband there. Not our level, in general.
Our husbands and sons also began to communicate in different languages. Oleg got into the habit of praising his new car and future house, hinting along the way that my husband would never be able to earn enough for this.
And the neighbors’ son began to endlessly show off our smartphone, wireless headphones and branded sneakers. Although the neighbors had never been seen showing off before!
It must be said that they were not beggars, as Ilona put it. Typical Russian middle class. The neighbors are still a long way from the Rockefellers.
Ilona and Oleg, when the construction had just begun, and their brains had not gone askew against the backdrop of show-off, mentioned that for the sake of a new house and car they had to take out loans. Therefore, their “fan fingers” only caused us laughter and bewilderment.
I can’t say that we began to envy our neighbors. Our discord has completely different reasons. First, we have no common topics left to talk about. Secondly, we are tired of their taunts about our supposed poverty.
Third and most important: over time, the neighbors began to care about the comfort of those around them. Having imagined themselves to be rich, they decided that from now on they could do whatever they wanted.
At some point, a high and almost blank fence grew between our plots. This fence fits into the standards, since it is not two meters high and has gaps. However, some of my plantings were in the shade.
I immediately went to Ilona. She politely asked me to move the fence, explaining why I needed it. And she answered with a contemptuous grin: “These beds were given to you! The times of scarcity are behind us!”
Indeed, now there is no shortage of fruits and vegetables. However, yours is much tastier. A neighbor, by the way, just a year ago she was a gardener like me, and she also believed that what she bought was “cotton wool with the taste of plastic.”
When I reminded Ilona of this, she said that she had given up “the poor habit of picking in the soil,” and now she buys vegetables and fruits in some eco-markets. According to her, they taste no different from fruits from the garden.
She then advised me to do the same. “You see, there’s no need to move the fence!” – the neighbor laughed at last. Frustrated that this year’s harvest would be poor, I decided to complain to the right place. But I remembered that the neighbors had provided everything for this case.
However, the fence is not the only problem that the neighbors have raised. Last week they decided to concrete the area in front of the house. We would not have been aware of their plans if not for the piles of earth and rubble in the middle of the road. General use, please note!
These piles do not interfere with the route to our dacha, since Ilona and Oleg’s family lives behind us. But we not only work on the site, we also go to the river. The path to it lies just past the neighbor’s property, and mountains of stones and earth make it very difficult!
By the way, we are not the only ones unhappy with this. Everyone is asking Oleg and Ilona to tell their workers to clear the road. It’s not difficult! And the neighbors defiantly retort that their site is already full of garbage due to construction, and they do not want to spoil its appearance with mountains of earth.
The other day I lost my temper and threatened Ilona with a showdown with the board of our partnership and other authorities. And this dacha queen chuckled that we wouldn’t do anything to them! They have a “high position”.
What kind of high position is there? Her husband is just the head of a department in the notorious LLC, and not some top manager of a giant corporation or a minister.
And I don’t think that during this time they acquired any useful connections. Therefore, there will be justice for these neighbors, and they will have to remember that they are still mere mortals, only with an income slightly above average.
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#neighbors #rich #friendship #culprit #envy