Overgrown
Sheesk, you skip a week mowing the yard and next thing you know ...
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1 comment:
Overgrown
Sheesk, you skip a week mowing the yard and next thing you know here comes the neighbor marching across the field to give you her "unweeded garden" speech. This is the problem with this neighborhood. So many busy bodies concerned about their property values.
Property values.
The people worrying about how much they could fetch if they sold their home are the very people who are NEVER EVER going to sell their homes. They come over and start with their blah blah blah.
Actually, why am I talking in the plural? The singular most annoying person in the entire subdivision is Cordelia Comet. Yes, that's her real name. She had it legally changed when she moved into her tree house. Her mother helped settle these rolling acres back in the '60s. They wanted a commune on the river bank and encouraged alternative housing. Who knew this area with its five acre plots and architectural masterpieces would become a global symbol for real estate values gone berserk?
You'd think living among the children of gentrified hippies should have some advantages, but it doesn't. They expect conformity. They expect you to mow your lawn. They expect you to respect their wishes when they come marching through your "unweeded garden" with an ominous sideways threat about meeting with the community ombudsmen.
I can see her headed to my house through the lawn now.
She's in that green woolen sweater she wears all of the time and even though it's the middle of summer, she still doesn't sweat. Nobody warned me about her when I first moved into my house and now I'm afraid for the rest of my life I'll live in fear of my neighbors. The minute she learned I'd be the one moving into the neighborhood, she hired a private investigator to uncover all of the skeletons in my closet. I was the first person to move onto this street in twenty years, so she had plenty of time to do her due diligence on my character, my finances, and most everyone else I knew.
The private eye even contacted one of my old high school boyfriends.
It's just the way things are around here. I'd probably move, but my lot overlooks the lake, the mountains behind them, and honestly her tree house is quite a sight to behold each morning when the sun glints off its windows. The father of the legendary tree house designer Lukasz Kos designed it and it's been pictured in all the most prestigious architectural magazines.
Even my own house is a historical landmark. It's the first one ever built to look like you're living inside of a robot. Can you believe it? The first one ever. Right next to one of the best tree houses in the world.
And still we can't get along unless I'm out there fussing with my yard.
Cordelia hires an army of people to help her keep up appearances. Most everyone in the neighborhood does. I prefer giving my place a stamp of individuality and doing things myself, but so far this has been met mostly with comments about how the previous owner did things.
So it occurs to me as Cordelia approaches to ignore the doorbell. I should let her stand out their fuming and giving her rehearsed speech to my screen door. Or perhaps I should answer and say, "Go screw off Missy Bizzy Body."
But I know what I'll do.
I'll answer the door, fake surprise and enthusiasm at seeing my neighbor, and then I will have tea with her, and then I will listen with rapt attention to her suggestions on how to keep up all of our property values, and then after she leaves, I will do nothing.
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