What will the neighbors think?

My street is nestled in the quaintest nook of an historic town, the stomping ground of rich retirees enjoying vespers cocktails at sunset.  It is the playground of trophy wives, the insistent staccato of their running shoes starting up with the dawn and keeping tempo well past dusk. Tidy lawns, impeccable homes, picturesque families; my street is an eco-yuppie magazine come to life.

Yet one house on my street stands apart.  Perhaps it is the listing carport, architectural echo of a tackier decade, that marks its exclusion.  Or perhaps the camoflage jon boat parked askew in the drive way in lieu of a BMW is to blame. Why is a girl sitting barefoot on the lawn with a meat cleaver and why is she surrounded by a sea of feathers?

 Welcome to my home.  It's Saturday afternoon and my roommate has shot a goose.

We agreed that if he shot a goose, I would clean and cook it.  After all, what could be more eco-yuppie than that?  Every cafe in our neighborhood boasts of their sustainable products, local produce, free trade coffees.  So here I am living the locavore dream, sitting barefoot on my front lawn in a sundress and apron, gamely pulling feathers from the rump of a freshly dead gander.

Before long the soft snowy sea of downy white and brown has drifted across the street to tickle at the ankles of two anorexic trophy wives as they jog by in their spandex and diamonds.  Turning, befuddled, they pause mid stride to eye the trail of feathers leading over to my yard.  I flash my best society girl smile, but it's too late.  The hand I have raised in a gesture of neighborly greeting holds a neatly cleaved goose foot.  Perhaps I should have kept this project to the back yard, out of sight of my street.