Inga Schvinga

Once again, reality busting chops is far funnier than fiction.  The year is 1998. The Baker family has made the move north of the river to a bigger house.  The actual distance from our first house to our second house is 16.1 miles.  In hind sight, I find it rather sad that I keep in contact and visit friends in Decatur, Al (682 miles away) and Allen Park, Mi (747 miles away) more than I do with friends 16.1 miles away.

My hubby had decided to do a bit of landscaping at the new house.  He had already brought one load of decorative landscape bricks in our van and decided another load was necessary.  He sent me on my way to pick-up the second load but not before he admonished me to be exceptionally careful, as the weight load was rather excessive and the springs on the van might be compromised if I drove too fast.

On my way into our new subdivision I had the mispleasure (yep, new word) of pissing off a new neighbor.  I could tell by the way she stayed 3/4" from my back bumper and the eye piercing glare she was shooting my way because my tortoisesq speed was not to her liking.  I really thought she was going to clip me when I turned into our cul-de-sac.

The next morning was Sunday, the hubby was up bright and early working on the front yard.  I had a couple of minutes to kill before our 8 month, 4, 6 & 8 year old sons were up and at it.  So, I decided to go out and visit with the hubbster while he piddled about.  Needless to say, when I made this decision I was still in a man's seersucker bathrobe with my hair piled high up on my head.  I grabbed an old folding lawn chair and promptly plopped down close to the weed pulling man. He took one look at me, laughed, and stated the new neighbors were going to think the Beverly Hillbillies had moved in.  Needless to say, I went inside and cleaned up.

After picking up the kiddos from school on Monday, I noticed the car in front of me entering the neighborhood had the woman in it that I previously detained.  I thought now was a good opportunity to introduce myself and apologise for my original speedless infraction.  (Not to worry about looking like Beverly Hillbillies, I was in a linen short set.)  She pulled in her driveway, opened the garage door but did not pull in, nor did she get out.  I exited by van but was leary about walking up on her.  After all, I didn't want to scare the bejesus out of her.

After a few minutes wait, I was finally able to catch her eye.  She gave me a big smile and got out of her car.  She greeted me with a very thick Scandinavian accent, thus the nickname "Inga Schvinga" came to life.  "Oh, I'm so glad you made it.", she stated.  I shook my head a bit and indicted I was her new neighbor and introduced myself.  She requested that I follow her to the back yard, when I asked why, she said that is where the area was that needed work.  When I questioned what "work" was needed, she laughed and said the "the gardening of course".  And that point I stopped and said there was miss in communications.  I reiterated that I was her NEW Neighbor......  And wanted to introduce myself and apologise for going so slowly through the neighborhood two days before.

At this point she turned her cute, perky head to the side and said, "So you're not the mexican gardener?"  "No", I said.  Just your new neighbor.  She asked what number I lived in.  I told her.  She said, "Oh, that's McX's place".  I indicated that it used to be, but that we purchased it, so now it was ours.  She then said, "Oh, so your husband is a doctor".  "No,  McX was a doctor, my husband isn't".  She then questioned how we found about the house if my husband wasn't a doctor.  I informed her that our real estate agent found the house for us.

She then shifted gears and said, "I know where you live now.  I know, I know..... but you must not.  You can't run a business out of your house."  I said that was fine, as I didn't have any business to run out of it.  And she said, "Well a daycare is considered a business". I agreed that a daycare was a business, but since I didn't have one, it wasn't a point of contention for me.  She then told me, "Yes, you do!  I've seen ALL those kids in your back yard".  Completely stunned, I started laughing and said those aren't DAYCARE KIDS, those are OUR kids! She said they can't be all ours.  She said she had seen me in the back with what had to be 5 or 6 kids.  I tried to assure her that 4 were ours and 2 were the next door neighbor's (whose shared gate opens up into our back yard).  She looks at me in complete disbelief and says, "So you don't have a daycare?" and then without skipping a beat says, "Would you be interested in taking care of my granddaughter?  My daughter needs help from time to time and I'm too busy to do it".

Seriously folks!!!  This is the conversation that went down.  When I quit choking on my tongue and my laughter died away,  I thanked her for asking but declined any future babysitting gigs.  I told her I had to get home and feed all my boys a snack and then climbed back into the van to hurry home as fast as I could.   I felt like I had been in a crazy, neverending nightmare.  Much like Alice in Wonderland.

When John got home from work that night, I informed him that it didn't matter how I dressed.  The neighbors didn't think I was the Beverly Hillbillies.  Instead, I was the mexican gardener who ran an illegal daycare.

Years later after most of my friends had heard the story, I was sharing it at the neighborhood pool one evening.  One guy with a very robust laugh couldn't contain himself.  It was at that point he said her name was in fact not Inga but rather XX.  He got a kick out of the story and I didn't feel bad for sharing it as everything I said was the God's honest truth.  It was then a couple of months later that she and I had occasion to be at a ladies neighborhood tea.  At one point she came up to me and introduced herself to me and then said that her husband had shared with her my story.  She lifted her head high and said it had NEVER happened.  I just smiled.

Inga Schvinga and I know the truth of that day and what transpired.  Or maybe, the entire conversation was simply lost in translation.