I concluded that she had zero intention of harming anyone and that I could mostly ignore her performance. I lost my temper, though less so than the last time she tried to start a yelling match, and restricted myself to loudly informing her, “You need to not throw things at our windows and you need to keep your dog on your side of the property line before it gets maced.”
That was crass of me- yes, I wouldn’t have said it if we actually owned any mace and no, the poor dog hasn’t done anything wrong. But the cops don’t want me having shouting matches with Miss Manners and I, legally, needed to tell her to keep her dog to herself before I can ask an officer to do it. Even though she refuses to speak to us. I suppose that was crafty in its way, but a better man would not have been periodically fantasizing about actually getting mace to get rid of the dog for the past three months.
The Christian preferential option for non-violence includes preferring not to threaten your daft neighbors. Now, if she had actually moved to endanger me or my family instead of engaging in a foul-mouthed theater of pretending to endanger us, I would be less pacifistically inclined. Next Monday’s saints, Boris and Gleb, I am not. The world needs more like them.
But she wasn’t actually threatening anyone, just having an embarrassing-to-witness and very public meltdown, allegedly at my expense. Unfortunately, Mary heard, but did not see, the exchange, and called the police.
The policeman tried to convince me that I didn’t live here (my ID was renewed right before we moved and has our previous address from three years ago) but relented when Mary told him I did. He also didn’t bother to ask Mary anything other than that- I guess women who call the police don’t matter to him. I am informed by the good officer that I started the fight and that “she’s allowed to talk.” Despite this, he apparently did tell her to keep her dog and her kitchen knives to herself, which were the only real complaints I had.
And now I get to mow my lawn whenever I want. Mary wants “to buy a drum of police-strength pepper spray” in “the most attractive girlie case they sell.”
There’s probably a moral or two somewhere in this, but I have to admit I’ve got no idea what they are.
(image via Pixabay)
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