When "Good Fences" Fail

One afternoon last summer I was sitting poolside, margarita in hand, novel at the ready. Jimmy Buffet music wafted softly from the CD player; the sun, just past its apex, glinted off the zephyr-ruffled surface of the water. Bliss.

Suddenly, a female voice shredded the quiet. “Duhs-deeeee,” it said. “Who da handsome boy? Who wuvs his mommy? Do Duhs-deeee want to do his biz-niz?”

It was Marlene, next door. She was talking to Dusty, her little dog--some breed that sounds like “sh*t-zoo”. Well, the infantile canine interrogation went on for about twenty minutes--Marlene likes to talk to Dusty from her back porch, so that the sound can carry over the six-foot stockade fence.

Marlene’s doggie dialogue came to an end, and I began to settle into the novel. A moment or two had passed, when suddenly I heard, “Wo-meo! What a big, handsome boy! You a goo’ boy!”

This time it was Hillary, on the other side, flattering her sixty pound English bulldog, Romeo. “Goo’ boy,” she repeated. “Who wants a cookie? Does Wo-meo want a cookie? Ohhhh, yes, Wo-meo knows what a cookie is, don‘t you, big boy?” It was the beginning of another twenty-minute orgy of doggie-worship. Hillary likes to talk to Romeo from her deck--God forbid I should not hear these blandishments from Both Sides Now.

Finding myself drifting toward curmudgeonhood, I consoled myself that these ladies were otherwise fine neighbors and that everyone is entitled to an idiosyncrasy or ten. Besides, neither has any young children upon whom to lavish this obviously pent-up motherlode of motherly instincts.

That evening, I was leaving the house only to find the two neighbor-ladies conversing by my front walk. “Hi, Polly Wolly,” cooed Marlene. “How’s my handsome neighbor-man? Are you being a goo’ boy?”