Flood(light)ing Your Feed With The Truth

I was on Facebook the other day, scrolling my feed, when I saw my own car on an anonymous post. The post showed my car being illuminated by a floodlight as it drove past a house just two blocks from my own. The timestamp on the photo showed 3:35 am just two days before.

Anonymous Poster: “THIS PERSON needs to learn what quiet hours are for! Multiple days a week, I see this a**hole FLYING down our road at 3:30 in the morning, speeding like their a** is on fire! I am SICK OF IT! If I see this car again, I will contact the police! Young people need to stop driving these d***ed noisy cars!”

Several comments agreed, saying people need to be respectful and understand that 3:30 am is an insane and unnecessary time to be on the road. Unfortunately for my anonymous neighbor, I have a dash cam.

I replied.

Me: “Hi there, [Neighbor]. I see that you have taken a photo of my (electric, and as such not really noisy) car, and you took it upon yourself to try to shame me without exposing yourself. Allow me to clear this up for you so that, hopefully, this will not happen again. I work at 4:00 am, so I have to be on the road by no later than 3:30. I have attached a video of my car going by your house at the time stamped on this photo. I hope this eases your anxiety about my audacity to drive down a public street, though I will add that if you do not want your floodlight going off when I am going by, perhaps you should adjust your security camera so it doesn’t catch vehicles on the opposite side of the road? Have a nice day!”

The video showed me driving at nine miles per hour, though the speed limit is fifteen. It was obvious that I was on the opposite side of the road from the neighbor’s house, and as I passed by, his incredibly bright flood light came on, temporarily whiting out the video. It also showed that I slowed down even more as I could not see for a second.

The comments quickly changed from defending my anonymous neighbor to accusing him of being one of those nosy nobodies. He deleted the post, but not before I took screenshots of the entire exchange.

The next week, I drove by in the wee hours of the morning and his light did not go off. On my return trip midday, I saw him sitting on the porch, beer in hand. He gave me a one-finger salute. I thought about returning the favor, but I did not.