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.

It is the day of the April 8, 2024, solar eclipse in the USA. I’m watching it with a friend.

Friend: “So, what’s blocking the sun?”

Me: “…the moon, [Friend]. It’s the moon that’s blocking the sun.”

Friend: “Why are you saying it like that?”

Me: “Well what else would it be? The frickin’ Death Star?”

Friend: “Maybe like an asteroid or something. I dunno, I didn’t study astro-taut-eronomy or whatever.”

Me: “It’s the moon. It’s always the moon, [Friend]. Every time there’s an eclipse, it’s the moon.”

Friend: “How do they always know when it’s gonna happen?”

Me: “Because they always know where the Moon, Sun, and Earth are gonna be way out into the future, so they know when they line up for eclipses.”

Friend: “What if they just… decide not to?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Friend: “Well, what if one day the Sun and Moon decide to swap positions? What if the sun gets in front of the moon one day?”

Me: “…”

Friend: “Don’t look at me like that! I said that I didn’t study astro-whatever!”

Me: “Yes that is becoming increasingly obvious.”

To my friend’s credit, he is an amazing electrician and very intelligent; he just skipped that particular science semester at school. It was also fun explaining to him that Saturn’s rings didn’t spin around the planet like a hula hoop.

Related:
Total Eclipse Of The Brain, Part 8
Total Eclipse Of The Brain, Part 7
Total Eclipse Of The Brain, Part 6
Total Eclipse Of The Brain, Part 5
Total Eclipse Of The Brain, Part 4

I was in the planning stages for acquiring a shed for my backyard. Although we had decided where to place it, I mentioned to my pain in the a** neighbor’s son-in-law that we might put it near his border.

Within seventy-two hours, I had multiple interactions with township officials regarding a shed that, because of its size, we did not need permits or township permissions.

The neighbor has done this to others, and eight years later, he does not understand why every single time he does any work to his house, a township official pays a visit to his house.

My son got his learner’s permit last year, and I was thus obligated to ride along with him and try to teach him how to be a good driver. For the most part, he learned quickly, but my biggest complaint was how he drove in our own neighborhood. Despite my constant warnings that kids played in our streets all the time and were regularly running between cars with little warning, [Son] seemed to think I was being paranoid.

He never went quite as slow as I’d like on the roads, though he was still going slower than some reckless drivers in our development. More worrying, though, was his complete lack of situation awareness. He didn’t pay enough attention to the road ahead or scan for potential risks.

We were coming back home from a practice drive when I noticed a car parked on the side of the road had its blinkers on.

Me: “The car ahead has its blinkers on.”

I don’t know how he does it, but I could hear the eye roll in his response.

Son: “It’s not even movin—”

Me: “—STOP!”

Son: “Wah?”

[Son] wasted a precious fraction of a second trying to figure out why I was shouting at him and composing his witty verbal response. During that time, the door of the car with its blinkers on started to open right in front of us.

I grabbed the steering wheel from my spot in the passenger seat and twisted it to turn us into the other lane, since I had been watching the road and potential hazards. I knew there was no car coming in that lane, so it was safe to swerve into it.

Me: “Brake!”

[Son] belatedly listened and slammed the brakes. We ended up sitting diagonally across both lanes. Had the door of the car in front of us opened fully, we would still have run into it and ripped it off its hinges. Luckily, the door stopped only a fraction of the way open, which meant that the turn into the other lane was enough to avoid hitting it.

I’d shouted a stop because I’d seen someone opening the door, but hadn’t had enough time to process who it was opening it. Now that we were stopped, I could look into the car proper, to see a young child sitting in the driver’s side seat of the car. A young woman was in the passenger side seat and had stretched over the seat and across the lap of the young child to yank the door shut as best as she could.

Eventually, she managed to get herself and the child out of the car. The child was crying and upset, but she still came over to check to make sure we were okay and apologize. Once the child had calmed down, I got a little more detail as to what had happened.

The child had wanted to play in his aunt’s new car, and so she had allowed him to do so only after repeatedly warning him that he wasn’t allowed to open the driver’s side doors without first getting permission from her. The child disregarded this rule, and his aunt had to grab the door to keep him from jumping out and getting struck by us.

Luckily, she had been paying enough attention to realize what was happening in time to grab the door. She apologized profusely to us and thanked us for not striking her car or the child.

As frightening as the situation was at the time, I have to say it worked wonders on [Son]. From that moment onward, he started driving much more slowly on neighborhood roads and was always watching for children.

Meanwhile, I spoke to the dad of the child who had been playing in his aunt’s car, and his dad says he has been far better about obeying their road safety rules since the incident. It seems the near disaster scared both boys enough to convince them they may want to listen when their elders warn them of something.

I’m talking to my friend/neighbor as he’s shoveling the snow out of his driveway. I plan to borrow his shovel when he’s done with it, so I’m chatting to him as he finishes up.

His other neighbor comes over while smoking a cigarette.

Neighbor: “Morning, [Friend].”

Friend: “Morning.”

Neighbor: “I wanna talk to you about the smoke coming from your chimney.”

Friend: “What about it?”

Neighbor: “Well, it’s drifting over to my house and causing my family breathing problems.”

Friend: “Well, you smoke.”

Neighbor: “Well, I smoke outside.”

Friend: “So does my chimney.” *Carries on shoveling, signaling the end of the conversation.*