It seems to me that the point of a fence is to create a confined space in which something can neither get in nor out. Much like some people’s marriages (not mine). A fence should be able to close in on itself creating a completed circuit of fencing, correct?
Then explain to me why, in my back yard, I had a fence that just stopped. It went around most of the yard and then just stops, leaving an open space. Granted, thanks to a neighbor’s work and the ingeniousness of the Russian spy who owned my house before me, there is a closed section further up thanks to a wood fence and what may be a plank nailed to the side of my house using, no doubt, the same technology the Russians employed on the Mir space station.
So, I looked at the chain link fence that led nowhere and decided it was time to take it down. Things grew between the chain link and the wood fence. I don’t think Russian spy Oleg even bothered to rake or clean there for seventeen years.
I wandered outside with tools and started dismantling the fence. Three minutes into it my wife and children decided to leave and go to a fair with Grandma and Grandpa, leaving me alone to do the work. I don’t know if they really wanted to go have fun or if they wanted to escape the flurry of profanities I was using.
I managed to get the fence down. As I was working on clearing out some of the crap on the fence line, the neighbor’s dog came up on the other side barking at me. The neighbor came tearing after the dog fearing it would attack. I, however, sat there unworried. Why? I could have fit that dog in my pocket. My child has more vicious teeth than this little rat. But I humored the woman and acted scared and started waving a hatchet at the goofy little rat, as if it were a rabid wolf.
Why did I humor this woman? Because I’m afraid of her. She looks like she could take me down and put me in a figure four leg lock until I cried; I have already had a run in with this woman. She just doesn’t know that.
I remember it as if it were just a couple weeks ago. There I was, enjoying a nice quiet day working in my back yard. Suddenly, a horrible shrieking noise pierced the nice Sunday afternoon quiet.
I looked around. I thought, perhaps, the neighbors were slaughtering a pig for a luau. But no, this was not the sound of a pig. Maybe it was the sound of metal grinding on metal? No. I strained to listen, as the sound was barely within the range of human hearing.
Then I could make it out. It was a human voice. Was it calling for help? Was one of the neighbors holding someone hostage in a pit in their basement? No, that’s not the sound of pain; it was something that this human was actually enjoying.
Then, after a few minutes, I heard what I thought was a recognizable phrase:
“This is the last, worthless evening you’ll ever spend.”
Holy crap. That’s Don Henley. But what sort of human would be a) singing Don Henley at the top of her lungs and b) why would someone be singing Don Henley at the top of her lungs? Nothing against Mr. Henley but . . . okay, everything against Don Henley. I hated that album when it came out. And I hate it more now. I wish Don Henley would just join Glen Frey and start playing crappy FBI agents in crappy movies and leave me the hell alone. (For the record, I despise the Eagles.)
I looked around and there she was. My neighbor bending over and weeding her garden (about two square feet in her back yard, since the rest is covered in a pool, swing set, makeshift deck, three hundred and seventy two chairs and something that looks like a shrine to Gino Vanelli.) Her southern regions were pointing straight at me and were crammed into shorts that my skinny eight year old daughter would have complained of being too tight.
Yet, there she was. Mooning the entire neighborhood and torturing us with her renditions of songs from Don Henley’s crappy early nineties album that I have tried to forget.
“In a New York Minute,” She sang as I prayed that she not sing the back up part, “ooooh oooh ewwwwww!”
Aw crap. She sang the background parts.
She wasn’t out for very long. Those neighbors never are. I could have been because of the smallish size of her garden. It could have been because the FAA told her to go in because of the whiteness of her legs were causing passing planes to think someone was signaling for help. I don’t know. I don’t care. She took Don Henley with her and I was happy.
After I finished the work outside this weekend, I went inside with a beer and a friend to watch the football game. It ended in disappointment. But that’s okay.
Matilda came in and sat between us. She looked at me.
“You have something in your nose,” she said.
“So?” I asked innocently.
“I want it,” she answered.
My friend looked at me horrified, not realizing that Matilda and I had been rehearsing this for a week, just waiting for a ripe victim. I think we’ll take it on the road.
At one point the baby was laying on top of me in a reclined position. Mom came in and asked what we were doing.
“Learning to watch football,” I said.
“Burp”, said the baby.
“See?”
“I burp,” said the baby.
Even bad, exhausting weekends can end on good notes.
Discuss I Hate Don Henley
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