Love Thy Neighbor - So I'm Going to Hell, Right?

Some of you have heard about my recent neighbor troubles. Long story short - my next door neighbor kept partially blocking my garage door. After having a "conversation" about this, my house was pelted with some dirty diapers and lots of miscellaneous trash began appearing in my backyard. Also, and perhaps coincidentally, my garage door opens and closes on occasion. One might wonder about karma in this situation, I suppose. So while I am one of the few residents in Covington with a garage, I am finding myself parking on the street more and more these days to avoid having my car stuck in my garage.

I've given this whole situation inordinate amounts of thought, and I've tried lately to push it out of mind. After all, in an equal act of karma for those who believe, my neighbor's car (with which he was blocking my garage) 'exploded' according to another neighbor and is no longer blocking anything, anywhere, including my garage. But something my neighbor yelled at me during our "conversation" has stuck in my mind. He said, "Just because you're a homeowner, you think you're better than me, don't you?".

I found myself reminded of this issue this week, while in lovely Springfield, OH, where I was watching "Good Morning America" in the Hampton Inn. Apparently in Lake Forest, IL, neighbors are upset because a woman has 3 potbelly pigs as pets in this affluent neighborhood. The neighbors who have complained say they can smell the pigs and they've (horror of horrors!) seen the pigs eat which means at some point those pigs will actually excrete too! Never mind the pig owner does not walk them around the neighborhood and doesn't chase after them with pig-doo bags around with her the way the dog owners in that neighborhood surely do. So it seemed to me the whole issue could be reduced down to snobbery or some sort of classism on the part of the pig-hater neighbors.

And it again made me wonder, as I have many times in my issues with my neighbor, how many neighbor conflicts are based on some sort of inherent snobbery or distaste for the 'type' of person who lives near you? Could I really be as upset with and angered by this guy because of who he is? If he had been the sort of guy who didn't wander around with no shirt, who played AC/DC at all hours and at all decibels, and who spoke English like his schooling hadn't surpassed the 4th grade, would I be less upset?

For all my democratic, open-minded claims, am I a hypocrite when it comes to my neighbor?