You know, life in the suburbs used to be pretty quiet. I’m talkingabout that kind of quiet where the loudest thing you hear on aSaturday morning is a distant lawnmower or maybe a kid’s laughterechoing from three streets over. My little house, number 14 EvergreenLane, had always been my sanctuary. I’d bought it decades ago, asmall place with a surprisingly big backyard that sloped gently downto a thick line of old oak trees.

At the very bottomof that slope, nestled amongst some overgrown hydrangeas, sat myshed. It wasn’t much, just a humble wooden structure, a bitweathered, where I kept my gardening tools, a rusty old bicycle, anda couple of fishing rods that hadn't seen water in years. And rightnext to it, my pride and joy: a modest vegetable garden. Tomatoes,peppers, a row of sweet corn that always managed to grow taller thanme. It was a simple life, and I liked it that way.

Then Karen moved in.Not just moved in, mind you, but swept in like a category fivehurricane wearing sensible shoes and a perpetually disapprovingexpression. She bought the sprawling, newly renovated house on thecorner, the one with the meticulously manicured lawn and the fountainthat looked like it belonged in a palace. Within a month, she was onthe HOA board. Another month, and she was President. I’d seen heraround, of course, giving pointed stares at stray recycling bins orspeed-walking with an air of immense self-importance.

I’d even heardwhispers from Mrs. Henderson two doors down about Karen’s "visionfor community improvement," which apparently involvedstandardized mailbox colors and mandatory shrub trimming. I justchuckled and kept to my garden. What did I care? My shed and mytomatoes were my world.