Secret Vengeance

I'm sitting at my desk in my office, the air conditioner is blowing right on me. It's thirty two degrees outside and the AC is wicking the sweat off my furrowed brow as I try to decide what to write about. I've been waiting for this day for so long. Waiting to share all my great insights and funny stories. I swear while I was preparing for this day to come I had a thousand pieces ready to go, boiling up under the surface of my skin, begging to be released, to be written, shared.

Why now can I not think of what to write? I guess the simplest thing to do is start with something small. Today I got a secret vengeance on my neighbour by doing literally nothing and I'm relishing in my sweet victory.

To set the scene you need context, eight years or more of context. Have you ever met someone that treated a public space like their own private dwelling? Say leaves their wet laundry in the washing machine for sometimes days at a time? Or fills the hallway up with their junk making it almost impossible for the elderly woman across the hall to navigate to her door? What about the kind of person that "accidentally" pours water on you from their balcony right above yours and then when you ask them to be more careful they accuse you of splashing water on yourself just to "come for them". This is the kind of person that slowly disintegrates your small town, friendly attitude into the grumpy "shakes his fists at the kids" cynic you one day realize you've become. You'll heal from that, don't worry.

So, earlier in the day, today, when it was only twenty-five degrees out and the sun hadn't quite reached our balcony, I sat on my sofa folding my laundry. I like to get as many chores done as possible early so that when prime sun tanning conditions hit I can lay guiltlessly in the sun and send pictures to my wife at work. She's of Spanish descent, my family is largely made up of red-haired, freckly people that burn in the moonlight, so it drives her absolutely crazy when I get more tanned than her. Another victory I relish in.

Suddenly my phone rings, my dad is calling. We have been calling each other back and forth for two days now because we've all made a decision that's very exciting BUT that can wait because if I get side tracked on that I'll never finish my story.

Suddenly something falls from the sky onto our balcony. It's covering the garden, the purple flowers that had only just this morning opened on the hostas. The sprawling sunflower that was planted by the sparrows that pick seeds from my bird feeder. I panic, leave my dad on the coffee table and run out to the balcony and wrestle with this billowy, rough, green thing that's killing my wife's beautiful flowers. It's huge, bigger than the rug in our living room. It's heavy and floppy, similar to the rug in our living room. After I pull it off the garden and chuck it into the back corner of the balcony I look back inside to make sure the rug is still in the living room. It is, so is the coffee table, my phone..

DAD! As I run back into the apartment to grab my phone and explain what happened, it hits me, I know what landed in the flowers. For two weeks now as me and my wife (and everyone else in the building) have had the pleasure of staring at the artificial turf that hangs over our neighbours balcony, right above our balcony, right above the door to the building. The resident of the balcony in question is the same kind of person that instead of putting up curtains or even a sheet to block out the sun, tapes up neon bristol boards, old boxes, paintings, literally anything that makes the building look like a crack house instead.

So as I'm explaining this to my dad, giving him the context, I send a couple pics to the wife. She calls immediately, I have to break the news to her that the literal two flowers she was the most excited about this morning, have be snapped off, not completely, but it doesn't look good. Now I'm mad, I tell my wife I can use chop sticks and butchers twine to stabilize the flowers but first I have to decide whether I'm going to throw this turf rug over my balcony and drag it to the curb or drag it inside and leave it in front of the neighbours door with a note that says "Something rude". I decide my wife is better at dealing with situations like this, I'll ask her opinion, she'll calm me down and give me a more rational route forwards. Something I won't regret. Something that a normal person would do.

"So what should I do?" I ask her, "Over the railing or in front of the door?" I have her on speaker, as I tie chop sticks to her flowers. "Do nothing" she says. "Do nothing? What do you mean?" I ask her, I'm confused now. This is a bit too "de-escalated", all the bullshit from this neighbour, all the rude comments, the lack of consideration for others, the total lack of respect for the building and it's occupants and she wants me to do nothing? Then she finishes "Yea do nothing, say nothing, she's not getting that back."

So I did nothing, and now my neighbours turf is sitting in a crumpled pile in the corner of my balcony. No one knows it's there except my me and my wife. We secretly giggle to each other over the phone about our plan until my wife says she has to go cause she's at work.

A few hours go by, I'm laying on the sofa trying not to fall asleep so I can be awake when she gets home. We work opposite schedules so we don't see each other some days. There it is, the familiar sound of foot steps trampling up the stairs in hallway. Both dogs hear it too, all three of us perk up looking towards the door. The door knob jiggles, keys clang around, everybody runs to the door. She's home. Before anything else happens knock knock knock. We look at each other, it's the neighbour, she's come for her turf. I look at my wife whose standing by the door, telepathically asking her what are we going to do. My wife just shrugs, turns and opens the door. Our neighbour asks about the turf, and very apologetically questions the well being of our flowers. She sounds genuine, she thought her kid had brought it in, do we want to keep it, again so sorry. My wife, friendly as ever says "No worries, I can bring it over to you later once the dogs are settled, it's not a problem have a goodnight".

Our secret vengeance was short lived, and didn't effect anyone but the two of us, which to be honest feels better than the alternative. Sure sometimes our neighbour is frustrating, but so are we. Living in close proximity inevitably results in some conflict on different levels. I don't wish any ill will against my neighbour, personally I think how you handle conflict is a great measure of who you are. Everyday my wife teaches me to be a better person, and shows me the importance of community. But I still feel good about my secret revenge.