Yes, I know I'm going on about my tiny little world but bear with me. Other kinds of posts will follow.
My mother, very annoyed at the amount of water flowing from all the neighbours upstream from us because of washing cars, hosing down driveways and so on, calls Neighbour #1.
"Hello? Mrs. N#1?"
"Yes?"
"I am calling from the last house on the road. I wanted to tell you that there is a lot of water that is coming from your house down the road. It all pools up outside our house."
"Oh, is it? I have just now come back from hospital. I didn't know. Can I have your number? I will find out and call you back."
"Okay. Here it is."
(A little later)
"Hello?"
"Yes?"
"I am Mrs. N#1. I spoke to my servants. They are saying they have not used any water. But they use so much water, what to do? Every month my bills are so high."
"Well, maybe if you didn't hose down your driveway your bills won't be so high."
"It is paved, no? Sand gets between the cracks. We have to clean it with a hosepipe otherwise it will look dirty. But nowadays we are doing it only once a week."
*stony silence*
"Actually my real problem is those trees on the road."
"What about the trees on the road?"
"They make the road so dark. And they keep dropping leaves all over my garden. My servant has to sweep it three-four times a day. It's such a nuisance."
"Leaves are bio-degradable. That should be the least of your problems."
"No, no, I don't like it. I wish I could cut off all the trees. Then my garden will look nice."
"I have to go. Please see that your water goes into a drain and not over the road to the outside of my house."
Update: One tree outside N#1's house has been cut and that put me in a vicious sort of mood.
"If she hate trees that much she should just uproot her whole lawn and shrubs and all and plant plastic flowers."
Upon which my mother looked at me pityingly and said that what passes for a lotus pond at the entrance to their drive is actually a bunch of plastic lotuses in a trough of water.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
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11 comments:
Totally at cross purposes, wasn't she!
With such excellent neighbours, what can one do?
send her to germany!
I like the new incarnation of the Spaniard very much!
Me too, equivocal!
You know, there's a Robert Frost poem in there somewhere.
ah dont kid about plastic grass.
I can't promise if this is a trend, but, I have seen houses with plastic grass on my street. They first started with plastic grass at schools, because of the drought and also good for kids with allergies - i am assuming. And now you can see it at a couple of houses down the street.
heart breaking.
I live in Australia.
After the update one loathes her even more. Ghoul- should go live in the Bhoot Bungalow. Bah.
Dipali: One can write blogposts! Oh, and this neighbour is not the Bhoot Bungalow one, hanh. That's an absentee landowner type.
Swar: You goin' take care of her?
equivocal: :D thanks.
sumana: you too, thanks.
falsie: which one?
n: oh yikes, no! I have heard of artificial grass and sand in Aussie schools, though and I remember thinking it was a bit much...unless the soil is poisoned or something?
I will kill to have a picture of her entrance pond.
SB: Oh, I don't know. Just a generic Frost poem. One, say, that starts: "Something there is that doesn't love a tree" and ends "Good phone calls make good neighbors".
space bar - sadly even schools in bangalore (of all places on earth) have plastic grass these days. one in our neighbourhood just uprooted lovely green stuff and replaced it with the other green variety.
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