Until about two years ago, the house just south of ours was occupied by Joe, a rather quirky octogenarian who was very well-intentioned, but a bit challenging as a neighbor. He had an extremely yappy and unfriendly dog, a habit of referring to "the coloreds" (yes, I know you're old, but let's move on) and no qualms about strolling right into our house uninvited to drop off some extra food he'd made.
After Joe fell and was put in "the home" by his kids, the house sat empty for about a year, although his grandson (about our age) came by from time to time with his sweet yellow lab, Princess, to do some light repair work. At some point last spring, we encountered Joe's son and daughter-in-law in the backyard, who mentioned that the daughter-in-law's nephew would be moving into the house soon. We had some mixed emotions: it's better for the neighborhood not to have the house stand empty, but we'd come to enjoy having a little privacy on that side of the house.
My initial impression of the nephew -- let's call him E -- was fine. I was out planting things in the backyard, he stopped by and made some small talk about gardening (promising, I thought), and it was fine. However, subsequent interactions did quite a bit, almost immediately, to dampen that sentiment. E seems to like nothing so much as talking about himself -- how busy his business is, how much money he's making, how brilliant his ideas for the house are -- at inopportune times. I expected a basic awareness of group dynamics and human interaction would lead him to think, "Hm, Laura and Mason are entertaining guests and having a conversation with them right now. Maybe this isn't the time to interrupt with a monologue about how successful I am." Alas, no.
But everything that E lacks, his partner has in spades. He's a thoughtful and considerate conversationalist, subtle and warm, and he reads body language in that wonderful way that allows you to sit alone in the backyard without worrying that he's going to ambush you with unwanted interaction. We hung out with him a bit at the annual block party (which E, conveniently, couldn't attend) and were really impressed. We love the partner; we despise E.
M, for his part, hasn't necessarily hidden his disdain. I'm not so good at that and have been a bit more conversational, but there's no real reason for E to think we're close or anything. On the flip side, the partner is really that kind of person who would be a lovely neighbor, so when we started talking about putting up some kind of fence on that side of the yard, I was conflicted. Yes, the privacy would be very good, particularly since our patio is only a few feet from their yard. But I hated to do something that might offend the partner and upset our potential future interactions with him. The fact that M preferred to take any major funding for a fence and redirect it toward a Europe trip didn't un-complicate the matter.
That last issue was resolved when I found some inexpensive English reed fencing in a gardening catalog, six feet tall and "densely woven for maximum privacy."(I figured that "maximum privacy" in reed fence terms is probably comparable to "just enough of a barrier" in real life.) I ordered it in April and, while waiting for the weather to warm up so we could install it, fretted about how to tell E and his partner. Although within our rights, throwing the fence up with no warning seemed rude.
"You do it," I told M. "I'm so bad with conflict."
"I'll have the conversation if you'll write me some talking points," he answered. Done. We agreed he'd talk to the partner, because that was the relationship we wanted to maintain.
A couple of weeks went by and somehow we never bumped into the partner, although we saw E come and go frequently. We were having dinner on the patio one of the first warm evenings of spring when E stepped out of his back porch and draped himself on one of the trellises I'd put up last summer.
"You know I love you guys, right?" he asked with a grin.
WTF? M and I looked at each other, and I looked at E and said, "Sounds like there's a 'but' coming."
"Well," E continued, "it's just that I was thinking about putting up some cheap reed fencing here. Nothing fancy, just a little something because, you know" -- and this is my favorite part of this story -- "I don't want to have to watch you eat."
!!!
My jaw dropped. I looked at M. "Did you two already talk?" I asked him. He shook his head, his mouth also open in surprise.
"Um," I said, turning back to E, "I've already bought some."
"What?" he asked.
"Got it a few weeks ago. English reed fencing. Six feet."
His face fell, as if he was offended that we'd thought of it first. "Oh. Well. I guess that's great, then." He brightened up again. "You know, I've got big plans for this backyard, including a vegetable garden, so it will also help keep out the rabbits."
That's it. He's a rabbit hater. We hate him.
He continued, "You gonna put it all the way around?"
No, dumbass, we like the other neighbors, I thought. We'd create our own little gated community if we could. But I said, "We're going to start with this side and see how it goes."
"Okay. Well, cool. Talk to you later."
He went back inside. M and I looked at each other, and I said, "The nice thing is, now I really don't have to give a crap about his feelings anymore."
We put up the fence the first nice day after that conversation. It came in three "bolts" of fencing, like fabric, to be tied on to existing fence poles with waxed black cord.
Took about 90 minutes and presented some challenges (I got a nasty splinter under my finger nail; M got pretty frustrated with trying to keep the thing from flopping over while I tied it to the existing wire fence), but it's there and it looks pretty nice. Not quite as "densely woven" as I expected -- you can pretty much see right through it on a sunny day -- but I think it will get the job done.
