Neighborhood Watch - The Musical

Neighborhood Watch – The Musical

Fence War Escalates As Stucco And Juniper Branches Fly.

Who says "Good fences make good neighbors?” Harken back to the spite fence of 1876. Charles Crocker (of the San Francisco Crockers), incensed that his neighbor Mr. Yung would not sell his property to Mr. Crocker, built a twenty-foot high fence completely surrounding the Yung property. The Yung property was the only property on the city block that Charles Crocker did not own.

Fast-forward to the twenty-first century when Mrs. Mildred Galworthy returned home from a shopping excursion - a dozen eggs, a chub of liverwurst, a roll of duct tape, and a ten-lb. sack of ostrich feed (don’t ask – you don’t want to know) –to find three heavily bearded muscular “gentlemen” hard at work tearing down the trees and shrubs which formed a hedge between her property and that of her neighbor. As the owner of the aforementioned property Jeremiah Minchaps sat back admiring the work being done, Mrs. Galworthy flew into a rage and asked  Mr. Minchaps what the %@$@#%@!$%!!!!! he though he was doing with her trees.

“She appeared quite deranged,” Mr Minchaps was quoted as saying. “I feared for our safety. I explained that I planned to build a lovely fence between our properties, a fence that she would surely admire, but Mrs. Galworthy just kept on ranting like a crazy woman.”

“Those are thirty-year-old trees,” Mrs. Galworthy was heard to say. “I planted them with my own two hands.” Later she admitted to Mr. Minchaps, “You have the right to prune away whatever hangs over onto your property, but do not injure the trees.”

The following day, a strip of yellow “caution” tape was seen marking the boundary between the Galworthy property and the Minchaps property, and a satisfied smirk appeared on Mrs. Galworthy’s face.

Nothing transpired for several weeks, and Mrs. Galworthy appeared mollified until the aforementioned fuzzy-faced gentlemen reappeared on the property digging fence posts and cutting back more branches.  As the work was obviously occurring on the Minchaps property, Mrs. Galworthy had no recourse but to utter a polite “humph” and allow the work to proceed.

“My tenants heard gunshots’” Mr. Minchaps was later quoted as saying. “The fence is built for their safety.”

“Baloney,” was Mrs. Galworthy’s comment. That fence wouldn’t stop a rooster in heat.”

The fence could more accurately be described as a wall, as it is built of stucco and wrought iron and provides a Latino appearance to the front of the property.

That would have been the end, had not Mrs. Galworthy noticed the debris - board trimmings, paper, wire, and stucco - splashed and thrown over the fence and onto her property. “$#@%$^%!$!!!!!,” Mrs. Galworthy was heard to exclaim. “It’s a spite fence. Just like Charles Crocker put up in 1876. I asked politely for the workers to pick up their “^$@#$%^#$!!!!, and, as you can see, they didn’t do any such thing.”

“My workers are old men,” was Mr. Menchaps’ response. “Their backs and hips are stiff with arthritis, and it’s very difficult for them to stoop down and pick up garbage. They are not lazy, but rather infirmed, and not be maligned, but to be pitied. ”

“^$@$%^#$@!!!!!” was Mrs. Galworthy’s response.