There went the neighborhood

Well, we've finally had it. We're giving up and moving out. We just can't take it anymore. It's such a shame because this used to be such a nice place. Until the volcanoes moved in.

We tried. Honestly, we did. We're open-minded people and pride ourselves on accepting others different from us. So when the first one moved in, we grinned and beared it and thought we could make a go of it. Even though there were signs that there would be trouble ahead right from the start. You know, the noise at all hours, the themal updrafts, the expulsion of steam and magmatic gases and the lava. Mostly the lava. It sounds like a stereotype but honestly, we almost never had lava problems before. Still, we turned the other cheek and went about our business. I mean if someone is not directly bothering us, there's no reason we can't all get along. Live-and-let-live, right? But then more of them showed up. And before you know it, it was non-stop chaos and destruction. Property values were dropping out of sight. I'm sorry but nobody who in their right mind is not going to be bothered by a neighborhood covered in volcanic ash? As it turns out, more volcanoes, that's who. I guess we should have seen that coming.

Still, we smiled and went about our business and tried to make the best of it. What finally tore it for us is when we found out that our youngest, Doug, was secretly dating one of them. Again, we're open minded people. In college, I even had volcano friends. But my folks, Doug's grandparents, just wouldn't understand. Trust me. So we put the old homestead up for sale (sold it for a fraction of what we should have gotten for it) and are moving out. Not so much because of how it affects me but because if my folks found out that Doug had a volcano girlfriend, it would just kill them. So this is really for the best.

Anyway, we have high hopes for the future and we're all excited about this opportunity for a new beginning. I'll write again once we get settled in at our new home in Earthquake Heights.