The year is 2009, the setting small-town British Columbia, Canada. After 10 years of “chop wood, carry water” out in the woods, it’s time to leave. The young’uns are finally mature enough to be latch-key kids, I luck out and find not only work but also the ideal rental right in town, and we three move in. It’s a bit of an adjustment, especially since the street is a busy one and the nearest house is well within spitting distance. Definitely not what we’re used to. But the resident in said house, an energetic widowed senior, comes over and gives us a big welcome, lets the kids know she’s a safe haven if they’re ever in need, gives us a few tips about the neighbourhood, and we settle in. So that’s us, single mum, an almost-teen and just-barely-teen, and Glenda the good neighbour …
for almost 9 months. I do see that we have a different aesthetic; Glenda wants the city to cut down the giant maple outside our place, I bring fall leaves inside so we can have even more of them. But, hey, live and let live, right? She’s so nice! In the spring, she compliments me on my clean-up of the place and how pleasant my kids are. And as summer takes hold, everything’s peachy …
until one day my youngest and a friend are playing quietly in the back yard, as maybe only country kids do at that stage of childhood. In the course of their game, one of them puts a handful of grass on the metal roof of Glenda’s shed, which, like her garage and metal fence, sits on the property line. A handful of grass, that’s all it took to release the rage of Glenda. Our neighbour no longer loves us, due to this horrific breach of her stronghold, and a strange sort of one-sided feud is thus begun …
and carries on for almost two years. She scowls, she talks loudly on the phone about the “stupid” woman next door, she throws cat poop on our front walk, she paints our side of her garage and steps deliberately on all the tulips in the process. We learn that even the city workers and local subcontractors are exceedingly careful not to tangle with Glenda over property matters; we never even think of retaliating, it’s not my style and I loathe conflict. Although, out of concern for the letter-carrier, I do point out to Glenda that the poo-flinging has to stop and that, no, it is not our cat’s scat in her garden, he’s elderly and stays indoors. At that, she has the grace to look momentarily a teeny bit ashamed, but for the next two winters …
she brazenly shovels her back patio snow into our yard, over the metal fence, creating a huge heap that lasts into May and melts directly into my basement, where our keepsakes are stored. I catch her at this sometime late in the second winter and plead with her, “Glenda, whyyyyy?” She brandishes her snow shovel and counters with “Well, where else am I going to put it?” I don’t personally see why it has to go anywhere – it’s snow, for heaven’s sake, just lying on bricks that no one walks on in winter – but I can’t think of a reply, so I go inside and brood …
until about 10:30 p.m., whereupon I’m overtaken by the Spirit of Passive-Aggressiveness (and a fit of the giggles) and I …
go outside and carve the snowy mountain into a GIANT PAIR OF BUTTOCKS, facing into her patio, of course. Where the first thing Glenda sees outside the next morning will be a still life sculpture called Kiss. My. Ass.
Oh, the shame I felt the next day! But it was too late, what with work and kids and all that jazz, it wasn’t until the afternoon that I could turn that big icy butt back into a humble snowpile, half hoping she’d seen it, half hoping she hadn’t. To be on the safe side I avoided her, until …
one spring morning, I saw a very pretty basket hanging on the gate that guarded the passageway between our homes. The note inside said “Perhaps you can use this.” and it was signed by Glenda. Well, I know an olive branch when I see one, so the feud ended happily, as this story is about to do as well. We had a good few months of friendship before the kids and I moved away, and we’ve kept in touch with emails.
I never found out whether Glenda saw my, ummm, artwork – is that what turned things around for her? Did it tickle her funnybone? Did it outclass her cat-scat-tossing and earn me her respect? I like to think so. And it was satisfying.