Mr Evil's Hummer

My neighbor drives a Hummer. He lives on a skinny stretch of land that falls directly between my house and a canyon in the mountains to the north of Los Angeles. Ten years ago his property was wild and overgrown, covered in sumac and yucca plants interspersed with prickly pear cacti. Coyotes even used to sneak up to the property every night and howl across the fence at my cat. This strip of land was the typical untouched desert biome of Southern California. It offered a gorgeous view into the canyon, and I would pretend that I was lost in the wilderness with no civilization in sight.

Fast forward six years, and Mr. Evil has purchased the property. His first move was to clear the underbrush, which is admittedly a fair plan of action here in Southern California, where one of the four seasons is Fire Season. Since underbrush is the number one cause of fires when lightning hits or someone drops a cigarette, it is the responsibility of landowners to regularly clear their yards. All the same, I could only see Evil’s actions as the first step toward total destruction of the canyon’s beauty. He leveled everything, killing all the plants that I used to climb on before he put a padlock on the gate between our properties.
Well, okay, that sucked, but at least the view into the canyon was still intact, minus a few yucca plants. Mr. Evil’s next move? To build a mansion between my yard and the canyon’s edge. I should point out that there are about 30 feet between the two: so, Mr. Evil has a 30-foot wide yellow mansion. Due to connections with the city board, he did not need a permit to build the house. The permit says that a house must be 20 feet away from the canyon’s edge, and 10 feet from the nearest fence. That about takes care of all 30 feet, but lo and behold, Evil built the house anyway. It took about eight months, during which time he had machinery operating at all hours of the day and night. When at last the construction was finished, he decorated the yard.... with plaster cherubs.
Take a moment to picture a large yellow Spanish villa perched precariously on the edge of a precipice, presiding over an artificially green lawn bordered with plaster Greek statuettes. I thought it couldn’t be any worse than that, honestly.
And that’s when he got the Hummer.
Now, he’s building a swimming pool. Swimming pools are fun, I won’t deny it, but when juxtaposed against dry desert mountains they are frankly hideous. Los Angeles is a desert, after all, and deserts do not host swimming pools! This pool will be a desecration to my mountains, as if the mansion and the cherubs weren’t already.
So now when I see a Hummer driving down the street all I can see is Mr. Evil’s yellow mansion with the plaster cherubs and the swimming pool glaring harshly against the canyon, not to mention their Chow-chow, Baby, that barks day in and day out. Here’s hoping a good rain storm will come along, not one that will do any real damage, but one that loosens the foundations of that pool just enough to give Mr. Evil a nice scare. Here’s hoping.