Vigilantism
Walking up to my back door, something caught my eye.
BONES
Big black letters, sprawled out over my door.
Then I snapped.
First it started with my fence getting spray painted. Then the bathroom window was broken. Shortly thereafter, piles and piles of dog crap started appearing in my parking spaces. As if that wasn’t enough, dog crap started appearing in piles in front of my door. Large swatches of paint were being knocked off the house. Construction materials were being dumped in my yard.
The black paint was the straw breaking this camel’s back. No doubt exists this is a personal vendetta. Someone with an axe to grind. Maybe Jailbird. Maybe the other drug-dealer who lived on the property? Nah. My bet is on the neighbor who defied me multiple times before I finally had his truck towed. Afterall, he lives right across the alley from me.
The police dismissed it all. “You know, this happens. This isn’t personal.”
“It appears to only happen to me. None of my other neighbors have this problem.”
An ancestor of mine maintains: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
“So the piles of poop in front of the door got there how?”
“Well, probably some homeless person used this area as a bathroom.”
“Right in front of my door? And that light in the alley is on all night long. Why poop in the light of the alley if you can sneak across the way and have complete darkness.”
“I don’t know but weird things happen.”
“If I accept that line of thought and my front door doubles as a public restroom then tell me something: Where is the smell of pee? Are you telling me homeless people only poop in front of my door without going pee?”
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”
“I have a theory which fits the facts. The crap wound up in front of my door because someone deliberately put it there. That means this is personal.”
“No sir. If it was personal, they would use eggs.”
Huh? The only way you can get even with someone is to use eggs? I guess it’s alright if someone treats your yard as a trash can. As long as they don’t use eggs, they can do anything they want?
Much like those sorry, re-tread movies from the 80’s the police didn’t believe me and refused to take any action. And like any sorry, re-tread movie from the 80’s it’s going to be up to me to stop this.
