This afternoon, grumpy and tired, I retired to the chair where I intended to spend the evening. Through the open window I heard a passerby leap at a plum tree with a rip.
At the next moment, he turned up the walk to the house, with a big Tupperware chest under his arm, a child roped into one of these ridiculous door-to-door solicitation programs that I hate: adults profit in money by teaching children who shouldn't be out on a schoolnight to harass residents, who donate out of pity; the children learn nothing useful and are exploited for pennies.
Before he got to the steps I had called, "I don't want to buy anything, thank you." He turned away, turned back, and asked if I was sure. At that provocation, I added, "And don't rip at trees."
I was just practicing. I figure I can get a lot meaner pretty quick.
He asked, pointing, "Are these yours?"
I didn't say that they're their own. Instead I said, "Whose they are doesn't matter. You shouldn't hurt them."
Who's teaching them that?
And it was the smaller plum, the one that doesn't overhang the sidewalk and requires a leap from a 10-year-old to reach. We were on the swing last night, eating our supper, watching people walk up to the park for the Sunday concert (that we forgot about again). A group of maybe six walked by, ducking the overhanging branch of the droopy one. "I don't know about your tree, man," one said to us, probably more politely than she would have spoken of it if she hadn't seen us.
I forget how low it hangs. I can walk under it without ducking my head. You just have to walk single-file and be shorter than, say, 5'10". Is that so much to ask? We keep saying we're going to hire a tree surgeon at least for the nectarine. I expect the others could stand a once-over too.
And ha, I prevented one dog from peeing in my garden. A human tugged a leashed dog away from the garden when she saw me on the swing. Ha. Score two for the mean old lady.
And I have to fence off the easement, illegal though that might be, until the vinca is stronger. The one that died was from its mother's womb untimely rip't by someone unloading an air-conditioner from the backseat of a car as RDC watched from inside the house while conducting an uninterruptable conference call. By someone, more specifically, who lives across the street, so I wonder why he didn't park on that side so his car door faced the right way. If I'd seen him I'd have yelled. Score three for the mean old lady.