My Defense Is Rock Solid

The house next door to mine started running a business in their backyard, installing boom boxes. No problem about the noise; they did it in the daytime when I was at work. But their customers started angling towards their yard at about halfway past mine, and soon there was a big, muddy gouge in the soil of my back corner.

I tried talking to the neighbors, and while they said they’d remind their customers not to do that, nothing changed. The mud got deeper.

But then one day, the yard gods smiled on me. The people across the alley had some work done on their sewer line, resulting in a hassock-sized boulder sitting in the alley. I noticed it, had a bright idea, and walked over to the workers.

Me: “Hi. What are you going to do with that rock?”

Worker: “Take it to the dump.”

Me: “How’d you like to not have to take it to the dump?”

Worker: “And do what?

I pointed to the muddy patch in my yard, not four feet from where we were standing.

Me: “Put it right there.”

So they did.

A couple of days later, I heard a horrendous crunch out back, followed by much yelling. I opened the back door to see a car with its front end up on my boulder and a very angry young man stomping around it, waving his arms. When he saw me, he yelled:

Driver: “B****, you wrecked my car! You’re gonna pay for it.”

Me: “No, you wrecked your car. If you hadn’t driven it across my property, you wouldn’t have hit my rock. So, I guess you’re going to pay for it.”

He shot me one more dirty look, and soon he and a couple of other guys were lifting the car down and somehow taking it away.

The boulder became the center of a very pretty rock garden.