You can end on a peaceful note
I heard a commotion in the backyard.
I went out through the back door of the kitchen to the backyard and I saw my neighbor’s Philippine maid stood atop a metal storage across the concrete fence. Using a long cutter in her hands, she reached out to cut our tall bamboo plants that had arched into their backyard.
Clicked! the cutter went and the bamboo plants fell like a mass of sticks. Then she proceeded to scoop them up and hurled them over the fence onto my backyard floor.
She sawed me looking at her, quite taken aback by her actions. She shot daggers at me. I said, “Oh what happened?!”
“Your plants are growing all over here!” She hollered and continued to fling the cut bamboos over. Unashamedly, Unreservedly, Uninhibtedly.
“Oh, I see, I should inform my landlord. They could get someone to cut it” My current house is a rented one as my house is undergoing refurbishment. Suddenly, from inside the neighbor’s house, the lady owner whom we know to be almost 80 years old, shouted, “ Don’t let your plants come over to our side!”
Wow, such callous attitude from the next door whom we have shared the concrete wall for the last one year. We have never spoken but I heard that this was not the first time they had hurled any offending plants that intruded into their private spaces.
My Indonesian helper meanwhile was standing in the backyard watching the Philippine lady continue her dastardly ways at the behest of her employer. She was bemused.
I went into the house and wondered what I should do. Throw the bamboo plants back and have a backyard war? Have a shouting match? Lecture the neighbor and her helper for their behavior? Apologize profusely?
No, it was not appropriate. Two wrongs do not make a right. Moreover, I did not want to dispense unnecessary energy after a tiring workday.
I went back into the kitchen to ponder for a while. Subsequently, I went back to the backyard and called out to the bamboo slayer. She looked at me and I gave her a thumbs up and said, “ Good Job!” Then I went into the house
My helper quietly bundled all the remains of the cut bamboo plants by now strewn everywhere, creating almost a massive pile.
Another day had gone by, a conflict was averted. Everything had passed without incident. I believed the owner of the house next door and her helper must have felt that they have behaved badly. Well, some soul-searching activity for them.
As a wise man once said, “Nothing has to go right today for you to act with honor and character”.
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