I have to start by apologizing for my behavior prior to
being a mommy and a teacher. I owe an apology to every person who stole my spot
in the Walmart parking lot, who cut me off in traffic, who struck me as rude, or
crossed my path on a bad day. When I was younger, anything could set me into a
righteous fury of foul-language, obscene gestures, and meaningless threats. I
apologize to Waffle House for countless and unmentionable behaviors towards
staff, acquaintances, and customers. To the customer service people that I
complained on to excess because I wasn’t treated like some princess, I am
sorry. To the waitress that I accused of stealing $20.00 dollars from me, only
to later discover it in my car, I apologize. I apologize to the teenage girls
who were driving too close to my car, which resulted in me stopping my car in
the middle of the road, getting out of my car, and giving them the what-for.
Most of all, I must apologize to the cashier that I used a VERY bad word to in
Mardel’s Christian Book Store (even if he was a misogynistic meanie); I totally
deserved to get banned from that store for a year.
If it is any consolation, I am still working on the legacy
of what was me and my loud mouth, even ten to twenty years later.
This is a tale of karma and being on the opposite side of “crazy
coming out of nowhere.”
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| "This is not my beautiful house." |
I have lived in my little 1960s money-pit since 2002. I love
my neighborhood and I love my neighbors.
There are a few rental houses just to south, but aside from
the occasional partying college renters, the neighbors have always been
wonderful.
When Ms. B moved into the neighborhood, I was happy to meet
her. She was sweet, funny, and a great conversationalist. I truly enjoyed
visiting with her. She also became friends with Ms. A, a long-time neighbor who
takes her personal responsibility of the street to a quasi-Zimmerman level.
It was wonderfully pleasant for almost a year and a half. We laughed, we shared food, we helped each other, and were friends.
In March, my husband had an emergency appendectomy (yes,
this is pertinent to the story and not a distraction caused by ADHD). The last
conversation that I had with Ms. B prior to my husband’s surgery was one where
she informed me that Ms. A was going to report two young, single mothers that were
renting a house as prostitutes. There was no evidence that these young ladies
were hookers and it honestly ticked me off that two single moms were not
allowed to start a life in a decent neighborhood without being harassed. They
wanted their children to have a yard and a house close to a school (because
sex-offenders are not supposed to live this close to a school).
Yes, their short-shorts and skimpy tank tops turned me into
a She-Hulk shade of envy; however, that was more of a reflection on how I felt
about myself and not an indication that they were selling themselves. I took
action and called their landlord to inform them that there was no indicators
that these young women had Johns coming to their house. For that matter, they
were fairly quiet and had a few guests. I felt as if I had done a good deed.
After my husband’s surgery, I was busy playing nurse and did
not pay attention to any neighborhood drama. Little did I know, Ms. A and Ms. B
had started a feud with one another. A
few days after his return home, his glued incision started oozing the nastiest,
foulest, most sewage like matter that I have ever had the unfortunate luck of seeing
or smelling. We went to the E.R., where he endured a second emergency surgery for
an abdominal abscess that left him with an open wound that required wet-dry
packing twice a day. I was a little stressed and not concerned about their
issues.
 |
| Like this, but with more sewage |
Upon pulling into my driveway, the Ms. B came hobbling over
to tell me about my indoor/outdoor cat. She had called Animal Control because
he was asleep in the alley behind her house and did not move when the dogs
barked at him or when her ex-husband mowed the lawn. I explained to her that
Sampson (the cat who got mangled needlessly by Animal Control) was a completely
bad-ass cat that was 12 years old; he was not fazed by things on the other side
of the fence. She could have called me first, but I believed her when she said
that she thought the cat was dead. I was not angry. She was too sweet to make a
person angry, I thought.
As I knew that I was going to be going back and forth to the
hospital, I wrote my number on little Post-Its to give to all the elderly
neighbors who did not have cell phones. With my number, I asked that if they
had any concerns about my animals to please call me. At Ms. D’s house, a sweet
elderly lady with an FBI son, I encountered Ms. A. Remembering the statements
that Ms. B said she had made about the other neighbors offering a red light
special, I decided to speak my mind (this is something that I am pretty much
known for).
Ms. A turned bright red and said, “That wasn’t me. I can’t
believe you would believe that (blank). That was Ms. B and I have the
voicemails to prove it! Come to my house and listen.” Sure enough, Ms. B had
left a string of messages detailing all of the calls that she had made and all
of the false allegations that she made against various people. I apologized to
Ms. A and went back to the hospital.
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| This is the procedure on a dummy for nursing students' practice. I would not subject you to the real horrors. |
A week later, my husband was home and I was back to being
his nurse. Only this time, I was having to pull out and replace wet gauze in
his open wound. It may have been the most intimate experience of our marriage
because I don’t know how much closer you can get to a person than allowing them
and having them willing to mess with your bloody guts and crusty gauze. Intimate
is not really the word, but it sounds much nicer than saying that my husband
was too cheap to pay Home Health Care to come to our house twice a day when I
was “perfectly capable of packing a wound after watching a series of videos on YouTube.”
Thanks, dear.
The efforts to keep the cats in the house were doubled, but
when I was changing my husband’s wound, I let all of the animals outside.
One Sunday, I decided that my stir-crazy, pale son needed
some park time. He had made a cardboard Captain American shield and had a blast
running around and releasing all the energy that he had suppressed during our
family’s gross adventures in surgery and recovery.
When we were walking home, we saw Ms. B. My son waved at her
and she just stared at him. I urged him into the house, but he kept calling
out, “Ms. B! Ms. B! Look at my shield that I made. It’s just like Captain
America’s” It was apparent that she was not interested. It was odd for her from
previous experience.
An hour or so later, my son and I put some cat food in a
bowl and tried to find Sampson (the old bad ass) and Nugget (the rat bastard
cat). I asked Ms. B if they were in her yard or alley. She said, “Go look.” We
did.
This 56 year old lady with Lupus backed me up against a wall
and starting hurling obscenities and threats to kick my a-word up and down the
street. I said, “Don’t do this in front of my son.” She said, “You shouldn’t
have (blanking) brought him here.” I instructed him to run home while I tried
to diffuse the situation.
Apparently, he ran in the house and with tears streaming
down his face said, “Mommy’s going to get her a-word kicked up and down the
street.” To which my husband replied, “I doubt there is anyone capable of
kicking your mom’s a-word up and down the block, but I will check it out.”
Meanwhile, she proceeded to scream obscenities towards me,
threatened me repeatedly, and went on a very odd racial tirade. She was saying
extremely odd things, specifically related to a recent award-winning movie
about slavery. She also stated that I thought I was better than her because I
had straight hair and because I owned my own (which she said a “Sugar Daddy”
must have bought for me, but there is no way that my ex-husband qualified as a “Sugar
Daddy” and I had already purchased the house from him on my own).
I went home and started ripping weeds out of my garden. It was
my only outlet for all of the rage that I was holding inside. She continued to
scream while my gut-busted husband managed to make it to the porch. She got
even more vicious and started in on him, so I called the police. This added to
her race-filled rant. This woman had
been a great neighbor for a year and a half and for whatever reason, she turned
into a combination of Samuel L. Jackson in every negative role he ever had. Based
on that reference, most of you already know how she ended every sentence.
In the meantime, Ms. A got involved because this was her
hobby. It was quickly revealed to me that both of these women were the same:
closet racists, elitist, and narcissists. Even when the police talked to all
three of us, these two women, both in the late 50s, both on full-time
disability, and both full of hatred for the other’s race, were making faces at
each other. They were literally sticking out their tongues and rolling their
eyes. Really? My teenage students typically keep it together better than that.
At what point in my life did I become the mature, rational
one? This was new territory.
Over the weeks, Ms. B proceeded to visit my place of
employment with accusations of rampant drug use (among other activities in
which I would NEVER partake) and how I should not be allowed to teach the
particular students that I do because of the difference in race. This was quite
possibly the most humiliating conversation that I have ever had with a boss.
When that did not get a reaction, she called the boss’s boss.
I was willing to submit to a drug test at any moment; I even offered up my very
long hair for a hair analysis. When that attempt failed, she did the following:
- She started staring down my child while he played in the backyard.
- She also started to record him as he rode his bike.
- Glared at me every time I was in the yard and mumble invitations to come into her yard, so that she could “handle” me.
It was getting creepy and I called the police each time
because I did not know what else to do other than document the insanity that
was unfolding. I feared my son’s safety, my safety, and the safety of my pets.
Ms. A was stewing and trying her hardest to get Ms. B to vacate
her rented house. These women would spend large amounts of their day staring at
each other from across the street, flipping each other off, honking their
horns, and generally antagonizing each other until the police came. This
started happening about three times a week.
 |
| This would have been a better idea. |
One night, Ms. A called and asked if I had a marker that she
could use. DUH! I am a mommy and a teacher that has an obsessive compulsion to
buy every Sharpie marker that I see. She walked down to the house and met my
husband, my bachelor neighbor, and me in the front yard. She leaned on my
husband’s trunk and started creating signs that said, “PLEASE PRAY FOR MS. B!!!”
On the signs, Ms. A put Ms. B’s address and phone number. The three of us
advised against it, but she believed that it was not a bad thing to solicit
pray for Ms. B. None of us could win that battle.
However, my teacher instinct kicked in and I began to take
pictures. Documentation is a vital part of teaching and The Jedi Teacher Force
was commanding me to cover my tail. Of course, Ms. A felt that she was doing a
good deed and stated that she had no issue with admitting to anyone that she
created the signs.
It was a good thing that there were witnesses, pictures, and
texts to a deputy friend because on Memorial Day, my walk with the dog turned
into being called every kind of white trash in the book. I was stared down by
her daughter, which was more intimidating than you would imagine (think the V
stare on Orange is the New Black),
but less intimidating than my mother’s “evil eye” glare when she has had enough
(Think the Red stare from Orange is the
New Black). Ms. B kept saying, “Now
she is going to run and call the cops.” After two visits to The Prosecuting
Attorney’s office and 9 police reports, I had not intended on calling the
police because frankly, no one was willing to do anything about her behavior. I
kept repeating to myself, “IGNORE! IGNORE! IGNORE!”
This is no easy feat for a loud mouth.
Then she said to her daughter, “What’s she going to do when
she calls the cops and they arrest her for what she did?”
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| So what if I don't look like January Jones when I am walking my dog? Give it time. |
WHAT I DID? I WAS WALKING MY DOG IN MY YARD!
This bugged me, so I called the information desk to see if a
report had been filed recently regarding me. Yep. You guessed it. She listed me
for harassment for these signs that were posted. I asked for an officer to come
to my house and see my documentation from the night that Ms. A went on a signposting
tear. They explained to Ms. B that it wasn’t me and that I had the evidence to
prove my innocence. Ms. A, forgetting how full of Christ and honestly, she felt
that night, was furious that I had “ratted” her out to the police. Sorry,
Missy. Ms. B had already intended to take that police report and have me
brought in front of the board for ethics violations. No, ma’am. As a general
rule, I do not risk my child, my husband, or my job. You will never see my face
on Nancy Grace.
Furthermore, when I do signs of any kind, they are cute and
color-coordinated with a fancy border. I didn't want any of that associated
with me.
That was on Memorial Day. I have had three weeks of peace,
so when an officer came to question me about other incidents between Ms. A and
Ms. B, I stated what I knew and informed him that I was Ms. C, as in “see my
way out of this.”
Ms. A missed Ms. B moving out today because she is in the
hospital with pneumonia. Pneumonia for which she blames Ms. B. Because everyone knows that pneumonia is caused by "emotion stress."
My whole point is that crazy is everywhere. Everyone has
their own battles and we all often lack the skills to cope with out issues,
especially once they are triggered by stress. I am sure that Ms. A, Ms. B, and
especially Ms. C, all feel like they were victims of harassment. Being that I
am Ms. C, I certainly was and I have the police reports to prove it.
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| I was almost to this level of rude behavior and thought I was bad enough to equal the whole group. |
However, I cannot escape the fact that having to live with
verbal attacks, stare downs, insults, false accusations, and threats for
several weeks while my husband was temporarily out of commission, was probably
something that I had heard during my former life as a wild, oppositional-defiant, child.
I learned two lessons from this:
1.
You reap what you sow, even if it is a decade or more later.
2.
Tall fences make great neighbors.
Until next time, LIVE LOUDLY!!!
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