Why do we gossip? What compulsion drives us to corner our friends and
neighbours and bombard them with the latest saga of Mrs. Halmartin and
her plumber? Why do we insist on having heated arguments about why
a simple clogged shower is taking so long to fix? And how the plumber
only seems to come around when Mr. Halmartin is at the office?
Surely Mrs. Halmartin has a right to privacy as to what goes on in
her own shower. And that Jimmy from number 15 who got young Sarah
in trouble. Shocking altogether. It's the parents I blame.
Them and their fancy garden gnomes. They're plastic, did you know that?
Oh yes. Just filled with sand to stop them blowing away. Not proper
gnomes like in number 12. Now that's a nice garden. Old Mr. Hawksworthe
really looks after the place. Sure it's the only peace he gets these
days, working in the garden, after that painted lady he married started
showing her true colours. You have to feel sorry for him. His life is
utter misery these days they say. But at least he has his gnomes
and his goldfish pond. Although since young Alexander, that brat from
number 13, sneaked
in and poured detergent in the pond to "give the fish a bath", they
haven't been the same. Mr. Hawksworthe took it well though, considering.
Just walked away and started digging a new flower bed in the back garden,
to take his mind off things I suppose. Yes it must have been
just to distract himself, because he dug it a lot deeper than you
need for dahlias really.
That young Alexander is a bad
lot. He has his parents demented trying to keep track of him.
Always running off, robbing banks, looting villages, and razing
entire cities to the ground. But the police can't do anything to
him, with him being just five years old. Oh he's a terror to
keep track of. It's the parents I feel sorry for. They do say
that young Alexander has been missing for the past few weeks now,
longer than he's ever been gone before. The parents are going half
mad waiting for him to come home, or show up on TV destroying
some defenceless continent. It's a shame.
Mr. Hawksworthe's new flower bed is coming on a treat though.
He's really happy about it. He stands their most evenings looking
at it, cackling, his eyes gleaming, and then he starts prancing about the
place shrieking in insane mirth. It all goes to show really doesn't it.
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