Dear Dr. Babooner,
I’m kind of a big deal around this area where I live. I have the most money, anyway, which draws respect and disdain about equally.
People who know me say I can be aloof and disconnected. I have absolutely no idea what they mean by that. I would ask them to explain but then I’d have to listen to their answers, and I always seem to lose interest after the first few words!
Anyway, it turns out there is this bully in the neighborhood who thinks his yard is bigger than the boundary stakes indicate, so he has annexed a piece of the property next door.
That sounds crazy to me but I couldn’t care less who claims to own which flower bed around here. Mostly we all stay inside and watch TV anyhow, and almost nobody is out in their yard, ever. Still, the populace is in a tizzy over this and they’re looking to me to do something.
So now I’m supposed to make everything right. I’d say the chances are pretty slim that people will be happy with the outcome, but I’m still obliged to throw my weight around and act like some Master of the Universe, or something.
And here’s the hard part – I kind of AM a Master of the Universe and I can get my way on a lot of things. But this? I’d rather spend my time trying to solve world hunger than get in a tiff with the biggest jerk on the block over a tiny piece of land.
Everybody’s going to be watching me for the next few days to see what I do about this stupid situation and how I confront this turf grabber. So should I ratchet up my pretend outrage and bluster and fume get all up in his grill, or should I be myself and just play it cool?
Aloofly,
Forlorn and FriendlessP.S. – He has nuclear weapons and so do I, if that matters any.
I told F.A.F. that we often have to put on a show to get what we want, and bringing empty outrage to the table can occasionally make a difference in negotiations. So I was going to tell you to pull out all the stops and let your head explode over this one, just to see if you can get a few concessions in the process.
But your postscript gave me pause. Sometimes there are good reasons to keep the temperature as low as possible. I’d say in this case we don’t want any emotional scenes or misunderstandings. It sounds like you’re both capable of rash actions that would be hard to undo.
Since the neighborhood bully wants more land, maybe there’s part of your yard you could cede to him as a substitute for the one he took over – a harmless swap just to defuse the conflict. You wouldn’t have to give him anything important, just some weedy waterlogged area that is a pain to look after even under normal circumstances. Some place like the state of Florida, for example.
But that’s just one opinion. What do YOU think, Dr. Babooner?
Trail Baboon 
Many years ago, the father of my son’s best friend had a mansion built on what he’d been told was the very highest point in the county. A few years later, another mansion went up and the occupant bragged that his home was at the highest point in the county. The ego of this father was so bloated that he hired surveyors to determine whose house was higher. Well, he lost by about two feet and never got over it!
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this is a tough one.
I think the fact that there are some kids in the neighborhood who have been playing baseball on this scrap of land (and by coincidence, they are friends with the bully), while other kids, who he doesn’t really care for, have been using it for pick-up games of soccer really complicates things.
It’s possible for them to share the space, but both sides want to control the schedule.
I don’t see much good coming from FAF rallying the soccer parents to battle the baseball bully.
Offering the baseball players the wetland is just going to make them mad and do the wetland no good.
It might help if the city would intervene as a neutral party, but I fear it lacks the teeth to impose rational compromise.
In a perfect world, the adults would stay out of it and the kids would have to work things out themselves.
But it’s not a perfect world.
I’ll get back to you when I have a great answer for this, if the Pope, Dali Lama or Desmond Tutu don’t get around to it first.
In the meantime, I think it’s okay if you don’t take a plate of cookies to the bully and the soccer parents stop having him over for dinner.
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
Dear FAF,
This is a tough one, but you have forgotten a particular factor: Global Warming. In 60 years peninsulas now visible may have succumbed to water. Putin’s scrap of geography may have disappeared along with Florida according to National Geographic predictions.
Therefore, the strategy requires DIVERSION rather than confrontation. Point out to him that if we don’t do something about Global Warming, Crimea will be underwater, thus all this conflict would be for naught. Invite him to view the NG mapped projections and put together a joint plan to combat Global Warming.
Just Sayin’
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Such a good and interesting point!!!
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I understand that at least some of the squirrels, bluejays and cardinals living on that bit of the neighborhood feel that since their great-grandparents considered their tree(s) on the property of the bully, that they feel they still belong to the bully. The sparrows and nuthatches might disagree. FAF, it is a fine line you walk. I think the best you can do is remind the bully that he is not the boss of you or anyone else in the neighborhood and needs to work and play well with the rest of the neighborhood. Maybe don’t invite him to the next couple of progressive dinners or cocktail parties at the Swenson’s.
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Good morning. FAF, I know that as a person who sees himself as a Master of the Universe you will want to proceed by forcing everyone to follow your lead on this issue. I would think that your tendency to force people to do what you want has resulted in a lack of respect toward your position. You should look on this as an opportunity to become a more respected member of your community by trying out a diplomatic approach. I know it will be hard for you to use diplomacy because usually you just tell people they have to do what you say.
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My grandfather had a tiff with a neighbor who insisted that a piece of land that belonged to my grandfather was really his. It almost came to blows when both showed up with a tractor to seed the area. My uncle finally got a surveyor to settle the matter. My grandpa was right, and I never heard how the neighbor reacted.
A friend of mine here related the story that she went to her elderly aunt’s funeral, and realized at the grave side service that the funeral home had the wrong plot dug up and were burying her aunt in another (still living) family member’s space. It was too late to do anything about it at the service, so the next day the funeral home had to dig up her aunt and move her to the correct space.
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Good picture choice, Renee!
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Thanks!
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I thought of suggesting to Dale that Dr. Kyle use Terrier stem cells to combat baldness. Terriers don’t shed, you know!
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We need mindless distraction here, so let’s send the bully a satellite TV hookup complete with DVR, Tivo, and a huge boxful of video games along with a bunch of 50″ state of the art, surround sound Home theater setups (plush theater seats with cupholders optional). Get him watching Downton Abbey, Honey Boo-boo, Duck Dynasty, and The Voice, along with marathon views of Modern Family, The Office and NCIS, and he’ll soon forget the reason he claimed that little scrap of land for himself just to show how tough he is.
Chris in Owatonna
PS- if that doesn’t work, spam him with cute cat video’s and other youtube fare until he caves and starts wasting 12 hours a day watching that stuff.
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I think we should have a Developmental Disabilities case manager of my acquaintance handle this matter. She was overseeing the affairs of a severely disabled woman whose family had never treated her very nicely. The family had a large burial plot with spaces for all the siblings marked out as to who would be buried where. One of the siblings decided to have her spouse buried in the client’s space, leaving the only spot for the client an area of the plot where everyone would have to walk over to get to the other graves. My colleague said “they walked all over her when she was alive and they are not going to walk over her when she’s dead”. My colleague managed to shame the family (as well as threaten legal action) into giving their sister a nice space in the plot and the sibling who took her original plot will get walked over when she goes to meet her maker.
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Glad I’m not at their Easter diner gathering
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Bullies have been on my mind a lot lately in part from an experience in a barber shop, which I wrote about on my blog. http://birchwoodhill.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/anger-mismanagement/
There has lots of news lately about bullies.
I lived in close range to a very nasty bully for 25 years of my professional life. I once when we were the only two in the faculty room asked him why he had to push at people, hurt people, diminish others. He got up and left. It was foolish to hope he would answer I know, or foolish to think that he knew. He would brag about how he had used his political clout to get even or just to do damage to people he selected. The governor of NJ reminds me of him.
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Yesterday I sent Dale a guest post about someone who chose the opposite path on territorialism. A moment in history when someone stepped down from confrontation.
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That post will go up on Trail Baboon tomorrow (Tuesday). Stay tuned!
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My son just sent me some photos he took yesterday of the cherry blossoms on the University of Washington campus. I thought some of you, as a way to look past this long winter, might like to see some of the pictures. They are on this blog http://beneathaquiltedsky.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/the-cherry-blossoms-at-the-university-of-washington/
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Lovely Clyde. Sitting here watching the snow this morning, it’s hard to believe there are places where the grass is green and the trees are in bloom!
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We just missed this when we were there. But then I suppose you say we just missed being in the landslide.
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Clyde, I’m sort of on the same wavelength as you today. My youngest daughter, who is staying in Seattle for her spring break, posted a few pictures of tree blossoms on FB the other day. Probably taken not far from the U of Washington. So beautiful.
I also read your thoughts on moss and lichens on your blog. When i was in Seattle briefly last fall, I was struck by the moss that grew so far up tree trunks. And as I’ve been sorting through my old slides, in preparation of digitizing them, I have found several of various mosses, lichens, and fungus. I found great beauty in those things and still do.
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I see a great deal of hazard here. When “the populace” is upset and wants someone else to “do something,” the likelihood is that such a vague impulse will result in violence that does not accomplish the goals it originally had. When a bullying neighbor misbehaves, we of course regret it, but that doesn’t mean we have the means to solve the problem. In fact, “doing something” whenever there is a dispute in the neighborhood is a formula for idiotic adventures that only make things worse.
That isn’t a prescription for total passivity. You should identify the mistaken behavior and work with all the neighbors to see that they all understand this to be a mistake. If you can make life less pleasant for the bully with collective action, do it. But don’t expect to solve the problem quickly. Sometimes it takes bullies decades to realize they have done something that reflects badly on them.
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tell the bully if he thinks it’s ok to vote on who goes where it ought to be good all the way around. Never mind that one chunk he’s interested in, all the chunks around him should be open for discussion
Never mind what you thought you had before you opened this can of worms what do you think you’ll have when it’s all over after we look at all the other areas of the property and discuss if maybe they would like to shift property lines too. U think a Disney amusement in the middle of red square with a Home Depot and a lowes would be a good deal? Maybe if we talk about new jobs employee packages health care the new annexed area of the sovimerican union would give him pause.
Can we do this with songs from fiddler on the roof?
Tradition?
Anitevca?
If I were an annexed man?
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tim, if you’re aim is to turn this geopolitical episode into a musical, don’t forget to include Crimea River as one of the numbers.
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ba doom boom
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Ba Dum Bumb
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That’s Volga.
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Thanks for the reminder, Dale. That should probably go in the glossary. And there was something from last week (Clyde?) that I neglected to “duly note”…
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One of the big problems with Eastern Europe is that who lives where is a mess. My wife’s Eastern European grandparents were Russian-speaking, Russian Orthodox Czechs. I have read many travel books from the area after the collapse of the USSR.
German-speakers live all over the many countries. Putin says he will defend the interests of Russians no matter here they live. All of the former possessions of the USSR have many Russians in them who were sent there by the USSR and have made their lives, there, often intermarrying, often stuck there because they have nothing to go “home” to in Russian, such as a job. So his statement is carte blanche to invade any of the countries.
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Putin is going to take charge of Russians wherever they are? I can think of a couple of corners of the greater Metro I’m going to miss. I’m also thinking some of those Russians came here to get shed of the likes of him, but I doubt he cares to consider that point.
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Well you can talk about your perestroika,
And that’s all right for you,
But Comrade Schevardnadze, tell me,
What’s a poor boy like me to do?
If Warren Zevon were here he could write a few new verses.
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This is all just too scary for words.
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