I saw my neighbor outside trimming hedges and walked over our property line.

I asked, “May I try?”

He said, “Sure.”

So I took the hedge trimmers and started trimming his hedges.

“I like doing this.” I said.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Sure,” I said.

“You want to switch lives?” he said.

“Sure,” I said.

We switched lives. Now I’m wearing a hard hat, on a steel beam way up in the sky, connected by wires, constantly fearing death—with no other skills or motivation to obtain them. He’s sitting at a desk in a blue suit and white collar, trying to figure out what it means to hedge, in the financial world. His newly acquired analysis skills compel him to search the meaning of it all, though he’s always coming up short.

I sleep with his portly wife missing part of her nose in a boomerang incident, and he puts up with my hot wife’s perpetual bitching, smelly farts, and lack of pussy output. I hold contempt for his juvenile delinquent children who steal my beer and cigarettes. He’s left raising my developmentally disabled son, with his perpetual drool, who can’t wipe himself.

Next June, I’m out trimming the hedges.

My neighbor crosses our property line.

He says, “May I try?”

And I say, “Sure.”

He takes the hedge trimmers and snaps the blades around his throat. His head drops back like a PEZ Dispenser, dispensing a fountain of blood. I take the hedge trimmers and do the same thing he just did.


"Trimming Hedges"

Copyright: © 2011 Randall E. Cunningham

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3 comments:

  1. That's how it's done, son. Not a foot put wrong. Pulled me right in, swept me right along and crashed me right into the rocks at the end. Talk about the story setting reality on it's own terms. Cool. Way cool.

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  2. I agree, that was potently short. Any longer and it would've dulled the sting at the end. Made me smile in a bitterly funny way!

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  3. The end made me laugh out loud--and that's always a great thing.

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