My new neighbors are from Canada and they’re making damn sure everyone knows it by flying a large Canadian flag outside their house. But they’re not just from any ol’ part of Canada, mind you: they’re from Quebec, that whiny little place that does its best to out-French the French.

Now, if you’ve been following me at Electric Venom for any period of time, you know I’ve had quite an interesting assortment of neighbors in the past 6 years. Back in Hawaii, we had the white-haired toothless wonder whose grandson spent his days shooting BB guns at my house. I can’t claim to miss that woman at all, and I made damn sure not to miss her grandson with a well-aimed shoe as we pulled out of our driveway for the last time.

When we first moved to Kansas we lived next door to The Loud People. Three kids, two of them old enough to be mobile very early in the morning, all of whom were born with great sets of lungs.

The wife, who had a fondness for high heels and what I thought at the time was the loudest fucking engine ever invented, would start most mornings by yelling at her kids to get in the car because, once again, their foot-dragging was going to make them late for school. The husband, like many men, was seldom left in charge of the kids on weekday mornings. I was grateful for that fact, because him being “in charge” meant turning the kiddies out at 7:15 to ride their bikes and play basketball in our cul de sac. This, at a time when I was a night person.

As luck would have it, I actually became friends with that couple after they moved. She’s now my hairdresser, and one of my closest female friends ever. He’s the guy we’re buying our next car from. Our kids ride to school together now and again (and, yes, I’m now the one hollering at them to get in the car already before we’re all late). Who knew?

After they moved out, a pair of single male Army majors moved in. No, they weren’t pulling a “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing: they were renting the house next door while attending CGSC at Ft. Leavenworth for the year. Turns out, one of them had the loudest fucking engine ever invented. And the slew of girls who’d come visit likewise drove really fucking loud cars, more than one of which peeled out angrily very late at night/early in the morning, depending on whether it was a weeknight or not. Also, they both had loud fucking motorcycles.

And again, as luck would have it, I actually became friends with both. One of them was a computer geek to whom I’d lent a couple of my favorite PC games. (And, dammit, I wish I’d got them back.) The other was, well, I don’t know how to describe him except to say that hanging out with him was, at times, like hanging out with a male version of myself. Not surprisingly, we wound up becoming great friends. (Yes, I realize how conceited that sounds. Trust me, you’d love hanging out with me, too.)

So when these Canadians moved in — oh, sorry: Quebecois — I wasn’t in any hurry to get to know them. Based on past experience, I was relatively sure that I’d soon wind up finding out more about them than I wanted to, thanks to the thinness of the damn walls.

Besides, I doubt that I’ll ever forgive them for not being the old neighbors. I’m funny that way about change.

Sure enough, bright and fucking early this morning, I woke up to the sounds of the Canadians — oh, pardonez-moi: les Quebecois — hollering to each other as they all piled in their loud freaking truck to go wherever it is they go every morning. And they were hollering in French.

You know, if I’m going to have to listen to some pissy blond woman screeching at her smear-faced offspring at oh-fuck-thirty in the morning, the least she could do is have the goddamned decency to do it in English so I know what the little fuckers are up to.