We're closed-garage people.

During my time here in outer suburbia, I have made a study of the natives, and I have come to realize that family tribes come in two varieties: open-garage people and closed-garage people.

Open-garage people are, as the name suggests, people who leave the garage door open all the time. Doesn't matter what the weather is; doesn't matter if the garage is neat as a pin or stuffed to the rafters like a hoarder's nightmare; doesn't matter if the garage is a tricked-out workshop or just a covered parking spot. That door stays open. It only gets closed at night -- maybe.

On the other hand, closed-garage people keep their garage doors shut as much as possible. Some may park in the driveway and never open the garage. Are there dead bodies stacked up in there? Who knows? Some of them will park in the garage and shut the door fast, like they're ashamed. Some are so ashamed they may try to back out of the garage without opening the door; this never ends well.

Are they afraid of having things stolen? An invasion of wild animals? Is this a survival instinct, indicating a stronger such instinct in these groups than in open-garage groups? Possibly. Maybe the remote opener is just busted.

Pictured: Closed-garage people.

It would be simple to make the deduction that open-garage people leave the door up for easy access to the house, if that's the primary way in and out. I have observed that that is not necessarily the case. Families that use their back decks constantly, park on the driveway, go in and out the front door to get to the car, and have a keypad entrance to open the garage if needed, still leave the garage door open all day. Why? Well, I have yet to penetrate the origins of this behavior.

Closed-garage people, in contrast, will leave that door shut as much as they can, even when it's a major inconvenience to have it closed. That's just how they roll... or don't, if they're parked inside.

Both types of people can annoy their neighbors, because being annoyed by each other is what neighbors do, but I suspect the open-garage people are more vexatious to closed-garage people than vice-versa. Open-garage people can pop out at any second like a Whac-a-Mole, usually when Mr. Closed is hoping for some peace and quiet or trying to get his dog to pee. Some of the open-doorers have garages so full of crap that leaving the door up lowers property values. Closed-garage people may seem unfriendly or standoffish, but that's passively rather than aggressively annoying.

My final observation is that, like morning people and night people marrying each other, open-garage people and closed-garage people invariably find themselves living next to each other. In the former case, I still follow my Saber-Tooth Tiger Survival Theory, which states that morning people and night people are evolutionarily suited to get married so that someone will always be alert in case a saber-tooth tiger wanders into camp. But I can't figure out why open/closed-garage people wind up in proximity.

I'm working on a Survival Theory of the Distribution of Annoyance, but I'm still gathering field data. If you have access to a huge pile of grant money, please get in touch c/o this blog. Thank you.