What’s A Non-Creepy Way To Befriend My Neighbor’s Kids?
By: Teejay Small
Tags: War, Nerf Gun, Humor, Weddings, Funny

I want to use their collection of NERF guns.

Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash

Life in the suburbs is often synonymous with peace, quiet, and tranquility. The apartment building where I live in south shore Massachusetts is an ideal home for small families, elders, or young adults such as my roommates and I.

Today I stepped outside to take out the trash and my new neighbors were moving in next door. A nice family with three kids. “Great” I thought, “three small children banging around in the room that shares a wall with my couch. Awesome. Maybe they’ll befriend the three crying babies who live downstairs and the two kids who love to sprint back and forth across the room right above my kitchen.”

As I walked by, bags of trash in each hand, I stepped to the side of the hall to allow my new neighbors room to get by with their boxes of belongings. They were busy so I felt small talk could wait. Plus, it’s a pandemic and I’m moving out soon anyway so why bother.

That is, until I saw what they were using to prop open the hallway door.

A standing clothes hamper, full of… by god, could it be?

NERF Guns.

Photo by Kolby Milton on Unsplash

And not just three or four NERF guns, little 9mm pea shooters like I had as a kid. No, these were that new new shit. Semi-automatic simulated mass shooting ass nerf guns. The kind of nerf arsenal that could blow the stuffing out of a team of nerf mercenaries at a moments notice. There was enough weaponry in this hamper to destabilize the Middle East… again. There was an Arnerf Schrwazzenerfer movie waiting to happen up in that bitch.

It took everything in me to prevent myself from barrel rolling across the room and blasting the boxes of clothing with styrofoam pellets like the bargain bin Nathan Drake I long to be.

Suppressing my urges, I continued down the stairs. On my descent I thought about what I would do to get my hands on that styrofoam stockpile… Maybe I could steal one when nobody was looking? “It just got lost in the move” they’d think, if they even noticed that it was gone at all. Perhaps I could offer to trade them for one of my toys I no longer use. I have a 20 pound box stuffed to the brim with hundreds of small rubber ducks that are quite honestly burning a hole in my pocket, but kids don’t give a shit about rubber ducks. No, I needed a plan, a real plan, and fast! This opportunity wouldn’t stick around forever.

So I started thinking… What’s a non creepy way to befriend my neighbor’s kids? I mean, there’s no authentic reason for us to be friends- sure we live in the same building but we have nothing in common. I’m 24 years old, there is no version of casually hanging out with a gaggle of small children with whom I share no familial connection that isn’t super weird, right?

But what if I was just being closed minded?

Like, what if we secretly do have some things in common? I started thinking about asking the family if they needed a hand moving some boxes. They had a few friends unloading the truck but what’s an extra pair of hands when you’re lugging furniture up a flight of stairs?

So I thought, what if, right? There’s no harm in what if. What if I helped the family, let’s call them the Patel family, to get their boxes and furniture and whatnot into the apartment, and while I’m there, I can just sort of scope out the place and see if there are any other cool toys.

By my best estimate the oldest kid is about 13. That’s a tough age, especially if he’s new in town, and especially especially during a global pandemic. But maybe he’s dealing with some of the same things I was going through at that age. And maybe, just maybe, I could impart some spiritual wisdom to him that I wish I had gotten from a sage, bearded, unemployed, balding 24 year old when I was 13.

The 13 year old, we’ll call him Das, he was moving things in and out of his room, getting organized. It’s a nice apartment, a lot like mine except their master bedroom has its own half-bathroom which is very cool. Also, since the master bedroom shares a wall with the back of my couch it would be nice to get in tight with these guys now. That way we could have an open line of communication if either side of the wall was being too noisy, circumventing the need to file noise complaints with the building. That was my way in.

Photo by Alex Mecl on Unsplash

So Das and I are moving boxes, lifting bureaus, etc. the usual moving stuff, and we start to strike up a conversation. He’s into his standard 13 year old stuff like Fortnite and Tik Tok and other popular trendy things, but he seems cool. He showed me some Tik Toks that he thought were funny and then I used YouTube to show him the original source where those same jokes were stolen from, and then his father came in and showed us on a VHS tape the television shows where the YouTube clips had stolen their jokes. Life sure is a flat circle.

After the truck had been unloaded and the apartment was mostly settled, I bade the Patel family a good evening and went on my merry way, sneaking a NERF MAC-10 under my shirt as I exited the room.

And the mission was a success! The toy was in my possession, I had it! Mission accomplished… but something felt off. I felt sort of… empty inside. The kind of ethereal emptiness that couldn’t be fixed by NERF guns alone. I felt as though a true kinship had begun to develop that I would be rendered incomplete without.

So, the next day, I waited for the family to step into the hall and I went outside and walked with them. They told me they were going to the grocery store and I said “That’s perfect, me too!” even though I had just spent $200 on groceries three days earlier. So we went grocery shopping together, like I was a part of the family, and I never felt like I had fit in so well before anywhere else. It was like I had unknowingly spent my entire life as a lone puzzle piece, drifting endlessly through the annals of an abandoned warehouse, only to now finally find my true home at the center of a puzzle so much larger than myself.

From then on I was one of the Patels.

Das and I were inseparable. He taught me how to play Fortnite and I wasn't actually that bad at it, even though the children in the chat would often deride me for being so old and fat. Honestly I’m not sure how they knew I was fat but technology has gotten crazy in recent years so maybe I’m just showing my advanced age.

I got Das in with a prestigious after school program using some of my connections from my college honor’s society. Normally I wouldn’t have even thought of it but he was such a bright young kid that I figured it would be good to fast track some of his abilities so he could apply for early admission to schools and get scholarships.

Little did I know, I would be changing his life forever by putting him in that program. That’s where Das met Mary. None of us could have known at the time, but what began as a high school fling would later turn out to be the love of his life.

A few years later, I held Das as he cried after he and Mary went through their first big break up. They elected to split up in order to avoid the difficulty of a long distance college relationship. That Fall, I drove Das down to UCONN where he got a full academic scholarship while Mary flew out to the University of Southern California, seemingly a million miles away.

I, like everybody, explained to Das that that’s how high school is, and the connections you make there, while impactful, don’t necessarily stay with you into adulthood. People grow and change and if the timing is right, maybe he and Mary could reconnect in the future. After all, it’s not like it was the 90’s or anything, they could stay in touch on Myspace or whatever the kids are using these days.

But Das wouldn’t listen. He knew then what all of us would come to see years later. Mary was the one. So, after graduating from UCONN with high honors, Das moved across the country on a whim, just to reconnect with the old flame whom he had never stopped loving, and thankfully, Mary felt the exact same way.

And that’s why we’re all gathered here today. I know I can get a little rambley at speeches but when Das asked me to present a toast at his wedding, I couldn’t wait to share this history with everyone here. Mazeltov, you two! Congratulations to many years of this beautiful union, we wish you kids the best!

Photo by Olivia Bauso on Unsplash

And that was when Das pulled me aside.

When I finished my speech and the music returned, he asked me if we could take a brief walk. Obviously, I thought that he just wanted to avoid crying more about my beautiful speech than about his bride’s dress, which frankly, could have used some extra hemming up at the bottom.

But that wasn’t it.

As we stepped outside, I could feel that Das’ energy was a little off; as his best friend I could always tell. So I asked him, “Das, what’s wrong? Is everything okay between you and Mary?”

“Me and Mary are fine, TeeJay.”

“Mary and I.”

“What?”

“Come on, Das, it’s Mary and I, put that big college brain of yours to work!”

“Whatever. This isn’t about that.”

“Okay well… what’s going on?”

“The NERF guns? …Really?”

He spoke with a sharp anger which acted as a thin veneer for his pain.

“Das that was just a funny story about how we met-”

“The NERF guns, TeeJay?”

A long silence.

He continued, tears in his eyes. “Tell me it wasn’t all about the NERF guns.”

“Das… It’s just a story -”

“STOP. Stop it. Please, TeeJay, for once in your life, cut the bullshit and tell me. Was it all about the NERF guns for you.”

I could barely speak. Through a dry swallow I choked out “M…m-maybe at first, but-”

“Oh my god.”

“But then it became REAL, Das, I swear to god!”

But he wouldn’t hear it. The tears were flowing in full force from us both now.

“How could you do this to me? To my family? We always said you were one of us.”

“I am, Das, I am one of you, please you have to believe me!”

“How could I believe anything you say… after this betrayal!”

And that’s when I saw it. His hand reaching for his hip. I knew exactly what was coming. In a snap, my own sadness and guilt burned up and gave way only to self preservation.

I dove behind a dumpster for cover just as the first two shots wizzed by my body.

“PEW PEW PEW” Das shouted through his tears as he shot, that was how we always did it.

The rubber tips clanged against the concrete wall and the metal dumpster as I loaded up the MAC-10 I had had in my waistband. But I had never intended to play like this.

“Das, I know tensions are high” I shouted from my cover. “But you need to put the gun down so we can talk about this.”

His voice drifted as he spoke, I could hear him attempting to surreptisiously flank me from the other side of the dumpster. “I’m finished talking. It’s time to let the NERF guns talk for us.”

So it was on. My shameful secret was out and there was no turning back. I leapt out from behind the dumpster as we both fired shots across the promenade.

“PEW PEW PEW”

“PEW PEW PEW”

“PEW PEW PEW”

Photo by Marko Blažević on Unsplash

“You’re hit!” He shouted. But he was full of shit, I hadn’t been hit by a single one of those shots.

“No I’m not, Das, you’re hit.”

“Are you kidding me? I literally just hit you.”

“Bro you always do this when you lose.”

“I didn’t lose!”

“Well Das, considering I hit you but you didn’t hit me, I’d say that you lost.”

“You literally didn’t hit me bro what the hell.”

“Okay you want to start over?” I could feel my competitive spirit getting the better of me. “We can start over, it won’t change the outcome.”

And so we spent a brief armistice collecting our styrofoam pellets from where they had landed. We lost 2 or 3 of them in total but there are always casualties in a war such as this. After we found all the pellets we could find, we assented to duel at 10 paces, just like in our favorite play that we watched together on Disney+.

But I ain’t no Alexander Hamilton, so I spun around at pace 10 and shot that motherfucker right in the eyeball for talking reckless at me like that.

Just as I fired, I too felt the familiar sting of a NERF bullet directly to the cornea, and we both collapsed in a shocking upset of pain and broken bonds.

Photo by Amin Moshrefi on Unsplash

After a few minutes writhing on the ground in a state of mutually inflicted destruction, Mary and her mother came outside to see where the groom had absconded to in the middle of their reception.

Unfortunately for me, Mary always thought it was a little weird that Das’ best friend was some random old dude who used to live in the same apartment building with him like 10 years ago. Also unfortunately for me, Das had landed right in a puddle, ruining his tuxedo. This equation led to a perfect storm of ironically unbridled fury on part of the bride, who promptly had me removed from the premises, but not before confiscating my coveted MAC-10.

And just like that, I lost everything I ever had. Where would I go next? What could I do? Could I return to the roommates I had scorned years earlier in hopes that they would welcome me back into the fold after years of passing them over in favor of the Patels? No, this whole situation is completely untenable.

So, to answer my own question, no, there is no non-creepy way to befriend my neighbor’s kids… At least, not one that doesn’t end in heartbreak.

So whatever that 13 year old’s name really is, he can move his own fucking boxes, I’ll just buy some NERF guns with my roommates when I finish taking out these trash bags.