Dear Neighbor, sorry about the idiots

In my history of rentals there have been very few neighbors that I'd happily invite around for a beer and a BBQ. Most have been friendly (save for the ancient battle ax in Bendigo that used to hassle my girlfriends..) but there were never good mates type neighbors that we've truly got on great with.

Artist impression of said battle ax

Until now. And now I have to apologize for sending a bunch of illiterate idiots around to their place..

Okay so my latest set of neighbors Jim and Janette (names changed to protect the innocent) don't actually drink alcohol. I found that out when I rocked around with a bottle of French red to say thank you for keeping an eye on our place and they politely explained that they no longer drink.

Okay can I bring around some chocolates?

'A lovely thought but we don't actually eat chocolate either..'

So we settled on a tattslotto gift pack because who doesn't want to possibly wake up as a millionaire? Sadly that didn't happen but they were thrilled with the thank you gift nonetheless.

The BBQ option was out too I found when they invited my kids to come around and play trains with their grandson and over coffee they explained they were vegans. I had to explain that one to my son but I was happy I found that out before we invited them over for an all you can eat bbqfest 2000 - that could've been very awkward (although wifey is a wiz at making salads so they wouldn't have gone hungry.)

In the past year they've text us with any possible dramas - anytime we've left our garage open they've let us know, when the dog looked to be escaping out the back Janette gave me a quick call and whenever the grand children are around my kids can't wait to jump at the invitation to join them for some fun.

So how did I managed to send an idiot wave their way? Through my terrible garage sale. But not actually on the day we were selling up shop...

It didn't look like this. Thankfully.

6 DAYS LATER

I'm at work chugging through some pretty tasteless coffee and doing my radio thing while wifey and the kids are unboxing various stuff I've wagoned over during the past week when she sends me a text message that made me laugh and groan at the same time:

People are turning up for the garage sale today and Janette keeps having to tell them it was last week.

It turns out the cardboard signs around my area that I forgot to take down from last Sunday (okay I took down one out of the three, so I got 33% of the job done) were still being seen. And even though the signs said 'Sunday' complete with Sunday's date and time from last week, people still turned up for a look.
On Saturday.
Of course they did.

Of course when they arrived at the old house they found the garage door closed but Jim and Janette's open (they keep it open when they're at home to fight a dampness problem at the back of it) and naturally assumed that must be the place. So they wandered in for a bit of a poke around to see what was on offer until either Jim or Janette popped down to explain that no they weren't hosting a garage sale and nothing was actually for sale.

'Oh okay' one guy grunted. 'What do you want for the surfboard?'

SO WE DID APOLOGIZE

And in usual form, they just laughed it off amused by it all. Wifey jumped straight in the car as soon as she got the message to take down the two remaining signs and the idiot wave subsided. We are going to sincerely miss those two and if our current neighbors are half as nice then life in this new hood will be pretty sweet indeed.

Although knowing my luck I'll probably find some way (purely by accident of course) to cause them some kind of random minor grief soon enough. 

Hope they're as amused as Jim and Janette were..