accidents

When I was a kid, I was cutting through my neighbor’s side yard to get to the next street over, and as I passed Kloberdanz’ house, I saw a motion in one of the basement windows and glanced down. I saw Matt Kloberdanz in the basement, and he looked up and saw me. I was walking pretty quickly, so I really didn’t see much, but apparently they thought I did.

Mrs. Kloberdanz called my mother to complain that I was peering in their windows, implying that I had been kneeling down by the basement window looking in, with my hands cupped around my face. Of course, my mother yelled at me, and no matter what I said, no one believed that I happened to glance at the window while walking past.

This past summer, I was leaving for work, and as I was walking out the front door, I heard a noise and looked around to see my landlady walking through the dining room door naked. I said, Oh! and hurried out the door so I wouldn’t see any more of her. Apparently she got up to let the dog out and since it was hot, didn’t throw on any clothes.

Every day I walk up the stairs to my apartment. The windows on the stairs face the house next door, and happens to look directly into a bedroom window where a woman sits in bed watching TV almost every night, sometimes partially undressed, and sometimes nude. She’s usually smoking in bed, too, which sort of freaks me out. I can’t possibly avoid seeing her, and she has to know when she sees the light come on in the stairwell that I can see her as well as she can see me.

Why is it I’m always seeing people that I don’t want to see?