Like A Good Neighbor, F*** Bigots

This was in the mid-1990s, prior to the hidden camera and instant digital photo age.

I moved into a new quiet neighborhood during the winter. The first few weeks were uneventful until I noticed a peculiar pattern of events. Every time it snowed overnight, I would go outside in the morning to find both my windshield and rear window rubbed clean.

One morning, I noticed a set of footprints leading up to my porch steps, taking a few steps up to a chair that was on my porch, and then turning and leaving. This was especially puzzling because I hadn’t even left anything in the chair to begin with!

Then, one night, I woke up in the middle of the night. After randomly glancing out of my window, I noticed a man in pajamas and a bathrobe walking away from my car. By the time I made it to the door to go ask him exactly what that was about, he was gone. And yes, my front and rear windows had the snow rubbed off of them!

A few days later, I was walking my dog around the neighborhood. As I was heading back home, I spotted a child somewhere around the age of six through nine rubbing off my windows and then prancing away.

I called out and jogged up to her.

Me: “Hi there! I’m Mr. [My Name]; I’m the new guy in that house there.”

Girl: “Hi!”

Me: “Can I ask why you were rubbing the snow off my car window? I’m just curious because it’s… rather odd.”

Girl: “Um… I really gotta go. I have to finish my homework. But if you have kids, they can play with me and my brother. My mom and dad want to meet you too. We live right, there.” *Points to a house* “Bye!”

This was all peculiar, and I wasn’t sure if this was something I was supposed to be alarmed about since this was various people (even kids!) doing it. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

Then, one late night, I went out to walk my dog, and boom! I caught one red-handed — this time, a teenage boy accompanied by two other kids.

Me: “Okay, hold it! What in the world is up with everyone clearing the snow off my car windows?”

[Teen #1], who had been cleaning off my windows, pointed to a house down the street.

Teen #1: “That jacka** over there keeps writing the N-word on your car every time it snows. A girl over there in that house—” *pointing* “—said he even draped a Confederate flag with a noose on your chair, but she came and took it.”

Me: *Alarmed* “WOAH! I need his name now so I can call the police!”

Teen #2: “No, no, not this time! This dude actually ran a black family out of the neighborhood after harassing them nonstop and the cops dragging their heels to deal with it.”

Teen #3: “The cops did finally charge him, but he got a plea deal and just got sneakier. The family ended up just moving out because they were sick of constantly having to deal back and forth with the cops and court.”

Teen #1: “So, when we all saw you moving in and saw you were black, we all arranged like a neighborhood watch thing where everyone on the block peeps out at your car and house, day and night. Any time someone spots the slur on your car, they go out and wipe it off. It never stays on there longer than a couple of hours, if that.”

Me: “I thank you so much from the bottom of my heart! But… I really need for the law to document this—”

Teen #3: “No. We’re all handling him since the cops can’t. Sooner or later, he’ll get tired of people walking their dogs up to his front lawn to take a dump, getting prank calls every night at like four in the morning, finding a mountain of snow dumped in his driveway entrance every morning, getting everyone’s junk mail crammed into his mailbox so that he has to pick up his mail from the post office, finding his newspaper pissed on, and getting banned from getting any kind of delivery at his house from every restaurant in town because everyone was constantly calling in bogus delivery orders with his address.”

Teen #1: “Yeah… and hearing the guy next door playing U Can’t Touch This on repeat for five hours straight every day.”

I didn’t know what to say to that because I was laughing too hard to say anything.

My “window cleaning service” continued for about a week more before I finally started walking out to the car in the morning to find the windows covered in snow or frost like they should have been. I’m guessing Mr. Bigot finally had to wave the white flag.

Meanwhile, I ended up becoming great friends with a lot of the people on the block, and when summer came along, we’d have fun get-togethers like neighborhood cookouts and such! I lived there without any further incidents for about seven years before my landlord ended up selling the property.

This story is part of our end-of-year Feel Good roundup for 2022!

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