THE WICKED WITCH OF THE EAST

We all know you can choose your friends, not your relatives and you also can't choose your neighbors.. Sometimes fortune shines on you and you find a wonderful neighbor. Then they are those times when, happily, rarely, you find a veritable Shrew. It's the luck of the draw or like so many things in life.

Such was the case when I moved into a new apartment with a small terrace. The weekend before the move, the handyman from my previous building was kind enough to come to the new apartment to help set things up. He asked if he could bring his six-year-old daughter and I said that's fine. She can play with my six-year-old daughter. Perfect.

As he and I were doing an assortment of things and the girls were playing quietly on the terrace, the doorbell rang. Since I knew no one in the building, I couldn't imagine who was there. I opened the door and standing before me was the Wicked Witch of the East (my apartment was on East side of Manhattan) –a veritable twin of Margaret Rutherford in the “Wizard of Oz” who portrayed the Wicked Witch of the West. There she stood, about 5 feet four inches in her black dress, black stockings, black shoes, black hair, black mood. Only the pointed black hat was missing. She was truly a vision.

“Yes.” said I. “Can I help you?”

“My name is Mrs. Wolf and I live next-door. Are all those your children on the terrace?” We had a communal terrace separated by a 4-foot high wall. All those children were two.

“Why?” I asked.

“I hate children,” she responded with a touch of venom.

What a shocker. And what do you say in such a situation?

“That madam, is your problem” and I closed the door. Thus began World War III.

Our apartments were at an L to each other so if she opened her door, she could see whoever was entering mine which she did daily. My kids will warned to stay away from her door and on Halloween when all the kids in the building were trick and treating her door was off-limits. She would probably have given them a poisoned apple.

She complained incessantly to our of mild-mannered superintendent, Mr. Olson, about the dreadful noises coming from my apartment. I might add that she was almost completely deaf. She and I had one communal wall: my living room and her bedroom. One night she had him come to her apartment once again complaining about the noise in my apartment when she removed her hearing aid and placed it on our communal wall picking up every sound in the building. Needless to say there was no noise coming from my apartment. How do I know this? Mr. Olson told me.

Well this bizarre contretemps continued for three years. I thought I was a saint putting up with her nonsense but strangely, I felt sorry for her. She lived alone and claimed to be a widow.  I thought what man could possibly live with the. She had one daughter who visited perhaps once a year. This wolf was not a fun mom.

However, one morning walking to the elevator on my way to work, there she was.  Black coat, black stockings, black shoes, black hair and still in a black. As we entered the elevator, she began mumbling something about the terrible people who lived next-door. That was me. I was in no mood for nonsense at 8:30 in the morning which is not my shining hour, so I went for it.

“Mrs. Wolfe, of you don’t cut the shit, I'm going to have to lock up”

“What?” she screamed

“LOCKED UP.”

The war ended and I never had another complaint from her. I learned that turning the other cheek doesn't always work. In retrospect if the entire experience weren't so absurd, it would have been laughable.