"Oh the Hedges" - Part I

Posted: September 8, 2016

“That house,” Walter scowled as he spoke to his wife, “is an absolute disgrace!  I’ve just about had it.”

Walter Sherman, a retired accountant, lived on Downing Street with his wife for the last thirty years.  Being the type of man who desired order opposed to chaos, it made perfect sense that his feelings towards his neighbors were unwarrantable.  Yet he felt the way he felt.  Not even his wife could change his state of mind.

The two had been married for over forty years and Betty Sherman knew better then to try and change her husband.  She had worked as a nurse most of her life, but now in her older years, found she could do her part by volunteering at their local blood donation center.  After she finished buttering her toast, she let out a sigh.  This would inform Walter, she wanted him to sit back down at the table so they could finish their breakfast in silence and for once not talk about the neighbors.

“I mean it, dear.  Someone’s got to do something about it.  I mean, why?  Why do they get that house?  It isn’t fair.  I must be getting punished.  Now after all these years, I’m being punished for something I must have done in my childhood.  Just look at it.  Just a disgrace,” said Walter as he peered out the window into his neighbor’s lawn.

“Just come to the table and eat your breakfast.  You know what the doctor said,” Betty ordered.

The old man, with a grunt, finally listened to his little wife and sat down to eat.  All the while, his mind kept chiefly on one subject, the house he come to know as the “1,2,3 House”.

On the one hundred and twentieth block of Downing Street, typical houses were arranged down the line all having one garage, one drive way, and one mailbox.  Each were one level houses, making them very ideal for small families such as the Shermans... and the Whites.

At 123 Downing Street, lived the White family.  Walter became quite upset that this specific family had been given the best house on the block for he had to live at 125.  Being an accountant his whole life, these numbers would not do.  The numbers “123” would be the ideal numbers for when he wrote out his return address when doing the bills.  But this was only a trifle thought, for the major problem came from outside.

123 and 125 were both constructed identically, but both were diverse in many ways due to the different proprietors.  The Whites were not at all like the Shermans and this drove Walter mad.  Having more time and money to spend, Walter was often found at the lawn and garden store located at the edge of town.  He fashioned his front and back lawn perfectly.  The flawlessly trimmed hedges, straight sidewalk edges, and coordinating foliage shown that indeed Walter Sherman cared for his home, inside and out.  The “1,2,3 House” on the other hand, was lacking a paint job, a regularly cut lawn, and the hedges, oh the hedges, were always out of sorts.

Betty found her husband’s observations and remarks to be a small nuisance, but as the long days of retirement carried on, they became progressively worse.  She had a slight understanding to why he had become so upset, for he worked very hard on making everything picture-perfect.  Today happened to be proving worse than most days.

For after a few bites of his toast, Walter stood suddenly from his chair and announced he would be going out to sit by the mail box and wait for Bill, the mailman, to come along.  It was eight o’clock in the morning.  Bill always showed up at around three.