I guess that just like we all like to think of ourselves as great drivers – or at least better than average – we all probably think we’re the ultimate neighbors. Because – realistically – who wouldn’t want to live next to me, right?

But, in a brief moment of reflection, I can say that I understand the people who’d like another kind of guy living next door. I mean, I’m around all day, every day, and being a writer by profession, I can’t help but notice things. It is my job to observe. Those little observations then turn into these cute stories.

On the other hand, I can be a pretty private person, minding my own business. What happens outside, stays outside. And what happens inside, stays inside me.

Now that I think of it, maybe that makes me a lousy neighbor. Although, I’m ready to help people, and I would never, ever call the cops when the neighbors park their cars illegally outside the house. Really, it’s not me. It’s that old lady down the road.

Nice neighbors are worth their weight in gold. I know that because at our last place, we had super neighbors. First of all, it was a new apartment building so everybody moved in at the same time. There were not set ways of doing things. In the beginning, I felt like we were on a tourist resort where people made day trips and then came back to report to the others. Of course, the grumpy old man inside me – one day I will make a fantastic grumpy old man – was annoyed at times, because we had moved from across the street, via Helsinki, so we knew all the stores anyway.

But it was nice. We were a team.

And, there were also three other families, with kids the same age, so we had a little commune of our own. And as a side note, it was the first time in my life when I lived in an apartment building with somebody else called ‘Pakarinen’ who wasn’t my mother or father. We had dinners together, the kids played together, and we became friends so that now that we all have moved out of the building, we – thanks to the Wives, I guess – still stay in touch.

Exactly eight years ago, Wife and I moved to Finland, to see what it’s like to be a Finnish-Swedish couple, but in Finland. We had made a couple of apartment hunting trips to Helsinki, and had found a sweet little place in downtown Helsinki.

Cousin came over the Baltic Sea with his big truck one Friday, we loaded it with everything we had, and took the ferry and our red little Renault Clio to the other side. The next day, a couple of my friends met us at the apartment, and we unloaded everything, parked the Clio in the fantastic inner yard, then started to get acquainted with our new hood. A nice hood, really nice. A tennis ball’s throw from the soccer stadium, and two bounces from the hockey arena. Close to downtown – the intersection of the two major streets – but yet a little off.

While the inner yard was completely free of cars, I did park our Clio there. Understanding that parking space is gold, even in Helsinki, I left a note on the windshield saying, “Just moved in, if this is your spot, please call 555-5555, and I’ll come and move the car.”

Nothing on Saturday. Nothing on Sunday. Still just one car parked in the backyard. Our Clio. On Monday, I woke up to my first day at my new job, with the team waiting for me downstairs, singing a welcome song to me. I kissed my then-pregnant then-Girlfriend goodbye and took off to Estonia. A team building thing. You know.

We were standing at the passport control when my phone rang. It was a man. A Finnish man. An angry Finnish man. “Come move the friggin’ car.” Click.

Still charmed by the Finnish frankness – “they’re not into empty small talk” – I called Wife, slightly amused. She was also at work, it was her first day at her new job.

“Listen, baby,” I (wish I had) said, “somebody just called me about Clio. Could you go back to the house and move it?”

Ten minutes later – and I understand it feels like eternity when you’re the one waiting – my phone rang again.

“Well? Move. The. Friggin’. Car.”

“Sure, take it easy, my girlfriend is on her way, it’s just that she’s riding a bike, so she’ll be there in…”

Click. The angry Finnish man had no time for excuses.

Ten minutes later, my phone rang again. That time, it was Wife. She wasn’t happy. She wasn’t angry, either. She was crying and I didn’t understand what she’s saying so she repeated everything three times.

“When I got here. When I-uh got here. When I got here…,” she said.

“What happened. Calm down. What’s wrong?”

“When I got here, somebody-had-pushed-our-Clio-to-the-wall-and-parked-his-car-right-behind-ours-so-I-can’t-move-it-anywhere,” she said.

“What? Pushed? Wall? What?”

“There’s a big Volvo bumper-to-bumper with our Clio and our car is 5 centimeters from the wall,” Wife said.

I tried calling the angry man, but there was no answer. Wife stayed at home to see when the Volvo moved, so she could drive our Clio somewhere else. By five in the afternoon, she was still at home, still staring at the cars.

Then, a man turned up, got in the Volvo, and drove away.

That man was our next-door neighbor. In the two years we lived in that building, we never spoke. And only partly because they moved out a year later. The new neighbors were really nice. They gave Son a stick horse. They may have been the nicest neighbors we had there. We never saw anybody else, except the smelly, very old man living in the basement.

Yesterday, we met the family that’s going to be moving next door in August. One part Swedish, three parts English. Wife met them outside the house and said hello, I went over to say hello, our other neighbors came over, and it all felt very friendly. You can’t really choose your neighbors, can you? You can just try to be nice, and hope they’ll be nice back.

So, I’m not saying anything about the illegally parked car. If that’s the price to pay for good neighbors, I’ll pay it gladly.