The Sally Factor

Sally, my neighbor of ten years, is a woman in her mid-50s; 56 or 57, I think. She has arthritis in her knees, which makes it difficult and painful for her to walk or climb stairs. I’m older than Sally, but because I’m a man and have an instinct, inborn or taught, to “help the women-folk,” especially those women-folk who are no longer as agile as they once were, I have often done small things for Sally to make her life a little easier. When I saw her attempting to prune a plum tree in her yard, I grabbed my lopping shears and helped her for the next two hours. When she complained about the huge forsythia bush growing in her front yard, I grabbed my chain saw and lopping shears and spent the next three hours cutting through the thick stems and then cutting them into pieces to fit into her trash receptacle. It was hard work. But neighbors help neighbors.

I repaired her fence when it threatened to fall over. When a tree-removal service tore up her back yard with a treaded vehicle, I bought a dozen bags of topsoil and some grass seed, and I did my best to repair the damage.

At one time her back yard was so overgrown it couldn’t be used, so I cut low-hanging limbs and removed vines and opened up the yard to make it more spacious. Sally was delighted.

One day Sally appeared at my front door, worried because her fuse box was smoldering. I walked over to her house, climbed the steps to her back porch, opened the fuse box, and pulled out the main fuse blocks – interrupting the incoming circuits. Later that day an electrician told her my action probably prevented her house from burning up.

Recently I rescued years of photographs on her laptop when it refused to boot up. I’ve loaned her things whenever she asked: a 100 foot extension cord for her electric tiller, a lawn sprinkler for watering her garden, and so on. I helped her after her she totaled her car in an accident. I’ve never asked for anything in return. I helped her because we’re neighbors. Neighbors help neighbors.

Sally has trays of potted flowers in her backyard and on her front porch and steps. Last summer she asked me to water her flowers for a week while she vacationed at the beach. So I did. Per her instructions, I watered her backyard plants with a garden hose and used bottles of water for the plants on the front porch and steps. Watering the plants took 15 to 20 minutes each day and I was mosquito bait the whole time. But that’s okay. Neighbors help neighbors.

My lawn mower is not self-propelled and it’s becoming harder to push it around my yard. I’ve considered buying a self-propelled mower. Sally owns a self-propelled mower which sits in a shed in her backyard. She never uses it; for the past few years she has used a lawn service. I decided it would be good to try Sally’s mower on my yard before making a purchase. I have bushes to maneuver around, and some require a lot of pushing and pulling to mow between them. Maneuvering a heavier mower might offset the labor saved by the self-propel feature. Using Sally’s mower on my yard would inform me whether a self-propelled mower would be a worthwhile purchase.

One afternoon I saw Sally in her yard. I walked over and asked, “Sally, can I borrow your lawn mower to try out on my yard?” In the ten years I’ve known Sally, this was the first time I had asked her for a favor.

Sally’s reply: “No. It’s put away, and getting it out of the shed is too much trouble.”

And that was that. Sally walked away. I said nothing, but I looked through a window in the shed and saw the mower sitting in a corner. A couple of boxes sat between the mower and the shed’s double-doors. I returned to my garage and got out my old mower. I was pretty sure I don’t understand people.

Yesterday Sally said to me, “I’m going to the beach next week. Do you mind watering my plants while I’m gone?”

I don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but I told her to find someone else.