Boundary quandary

 The other day I said hi to Neighbour Mark on my way past his place. He is a cheerful and busy soul, often working outside on something or other. Our adjoining properties have a continuous concrete retaining wall abutting the footpath; and years ago we coordinated our picket fences – we're presenting a united front to the world, let's say.

Mark was on his haunches weeding the footpath in front of his garage; and I realised that our whole shared frontage (32 metres long) was weedy as heck. I mumbled something non-commital like "oh, I really have to do ours" and carried on.

But then I couldn't rest for thinking of Mark painstakingly weeding his section; then getting to the boundary and having a choice to make. Does he stop, leaving a stark disparity between his side (respectable/industrious) and mine (slovenly/couch potato)? Or – does he keep going, weeding our weeds and putting us (further) in his debt?

So I got out before seven on Saturday morning to do our side before he felt he had to. There I saw Neighbour Mark had only weeded in front of his garage. I started doing our side, which took about an hour; and then of course I was the one with the quandary. So I did all the rest of his.

A couple of days later he saw me in the backyard and said "Did you do our weeds??" and I told him when I saw he'd only done the garage, I did say to myself "That bastard!"