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Había una vez un hombre que salió un día de su casa para ir al trabajo, y justo al pasar por delante de la puerta de la casa de su vecino, sin darse cuenta se le cayó un papel importante. Su vecino, que miraba por la ventana en ese momento, vio caer el papel, y pensó:
- ¡Qué descarado, el tío va y tira un papel para ensuciar mi puerta, disimulando descaradamente!
Pero en vez de decirle nada, planeó su venganza, y por la noche vació su papelera junto a la puerta del primer vecino. Este estaba mirando por la ventana en ese momento y cuando recogió los papeles encontró aquel papel tan importante que había perdido y que le había supuesto un problemón aquel día. Estaba roto en mil pedazos, y pensó que su vecino no sólo se lo había robado, sino que además lo había roto y tirado en la puerta de su casa. Pero no quiso decirle nada, y se puso a preparar su venganza. Esa noche llamó a una granja para hacer un pedido de diez cerdos y cien patos, y pidió que los llevaran a la dirección de su vecino, que al día siguiente tuvo un buen problema para tratar de librarse de los animales y sus malos olores. Pero éste, como estaba seguro de que aquello era idea de su vecino, en cuanto se deshizo de los cerdos comenzó a planear su venganza.
Y así, uno y otro siguieron fastidiándose mutuamente, cada vez más exageradamente, y de aquel simple papelito en la puerta llegaron a llamar a una banda de música, o una sirena de bomberos, a estrellar un camión contra la tapia, lanzar una lluvia de piedras contra los cristales, disparar un cañón del ejército y finalmente, una bomba-terremoto que derrumbó las casas de los dos vecinos...
Ambos acabaron en el hospital, y se pasaron una buena temporada compartiendo habitación. Al principio no se dirigían la palabra, pero un día, cansados del silencio, comenzaron a hablar; con el tiempo, se fueron haciendo amigos hasta que finalmente, un día se atrevieron a hablar del incidente del papel. Entonces se dieron cuenta de que todo había sido una coincidencia, y de que si la primera vez hubieran hablado claramente, en lugar de juzgar las malas intenciones de su vecino, se habrían dado cuenta de que todo había ocurrido por casualidad, y ahora los dos tendrían su casa en pie...
Y así fue, hablando, como aquellos dos vecinos terminaron siendo amigos, lo que les fue de gran ayuda para recuperarse de sus heridas y reconstruir sus maltrechas casas.
(Haga clic en la palabra deseada en Inglés para saber su significado y pronunciación)
The bad neighbours Listen
There was once a man who went out to look for a job. As he was passing his neighbour's house, an important piece of paper fell out of the man's pocket.
His neighbour happened to be looking out the window. He saw the piece of paper fall, and he thought: "What a disgrace! That guy deliberately let that fall out of his pocket. He's trying to mess up the front of my house, and he's being sneaky about it, too!"
But instead of going out and saying something, the neighbour planned his revenge.
That night, he took his waste-paper basket and went to the man's house. The first man also happened to be looking out the window, and saw what happened. Later, when he was picking up the papers which had been dumped on his porch, he found the important piece of paper that he had lost. It was torn into dozens of pieces. He thought that his neighbour had not only picked his pocket, but had had the cheek to mess up his doorway with rubbish.
He didn't want to say anything. Instead, he started plotting his revenge. That night he phoned a farmer to make an order of ten pigs and a hundred ducks. He asked that they be delivered to his neighbour's house.
Of course, the next day, his neighbour had quite a bit of trouble trying to rid himself of so many animals and their accompanying pong.
Sure that this had been a dastardly trick pulled by his neighbour, as soon as the second man had gotten rid of the pigs and ducks, he again started planning his revenge.
And so it went on.
They continued trying to get their own back on each other, and each time their acts of revenge got bigger and more ridiculous. The dropping of that single piece of paper ended up invoking a rock band, a fire siren, the driving of a lorry into a garden fence, the throwing of a hail of stones at windows, the firing of a canon, and finally the dropping of a bomb which destroyed both men's houses.
Both ended up in a hospital, and had to spend quite some time sharing a room there. At first they refused to speak to each other, but, one day, tired of the silence, they got to talking. As time passed, they became friends, until one day they finally dared discuss the piece of paper incident. They realised that it had all been a misunderstanding, and that if they had talked to each other on the first occasion - instead of jumping to conclusions about bad intentions - then none of this would have happened. Even better, they would still have their houses.
However, in the end, the fact that they were talking, and had become friends, helped them greatly to recover from their wounds, and to work together to rebuild their houses.
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