this morning #1071.

this morning, this cedar-chip-smelling good-for-nothing came up to me demanding that i trim the grand old oak in my front yard. “get my arboreal nuisance in check.” he fast-walk-wiggled all the way across his lawn, right up to the edge of my property & started screeching his best big words over the fence. “encroach.” “indignant.” “malignant.” i stopped trimming the hedges & put down my clippers to show him i meant no harm. responded with a “calm down, neighbor.” he informed me that i’d lost my right to call him that. i didn’t realize it was a right. thought it was a fact. i explained that the tree had been there for four generations. he’d been here for four months. i’d have to think it over.