Next door

While I stood out in my garden in extra company, I uttered the word “homosexual”, to which the immediate response was sharp, quick, “Next door may hear, can you keep it down”.   To this I just walked quietly away after an expression of my own surprise, followed by a fast fang of downing, momentary damning depression that for a whole short moment hit me through an inability to ward it off.
                 II
I put it out of my mind but now it has resurfaced and appeared here. Not garden etiquette our even outside apparently these certain words. Next door, the neighbours must be sensitive surely if I am to seal my lips and be warned of the usage of foul language .
I heard this from the same person who declared “I don’t like filth” over the most trivial of things…I must be careful not to have her come across a trite romantic comedy…that would be terrifying , perhaps hypothetically as much so as that dreaded word the neighbours should be kept from hearing apparently.