When I was young, snowblowers were uncommon. My dad and a neighbor chipped in to buy one together for their shared driveway. Even by today’s standards, it was a monster and could handle really deep snow.

We got some new neighbors across the street. The lady, who was pregnant, and her mom showed up after a week of serious snow and ice storms and found their long driveway (it went around to the back of the house) and sidewalks with layers of snow and ice nearly three feet deep.

My mom saw them struggling to get in and out of the house from the street, so she sent me over to plow the driveway. It took hours because of the ice and the snow was so deep. I finished up, and the ladies offered me some money, but I refused.

When the husband (who was a doctor) got there later that day, he came over and insisted I take something like $50! In the early 1970s, that was a lot for a kid. And then, he hired me to always plow and shovel whenever it snowed.

When some of the other neighbors found out I was doing this, they also paid me to do their driveways. After a really big snowfall, I could make a few hundred dollars plowing all day. Good times as a teen!

When this happened, I was completely furious about this whole situation. But now, looking back on it, all I can think of is how blatantly dumb and ignorant some people are.

I’m a woman, and I wear a headscarf for religious reasons. At the time of this story, I was seventeen, and I had just gotten into the habit of wearing a headscarf every day. For the first few weeks, people who didn’t know me personally actually couldn’t recognize me with it on.

I’d gone over to play video games with one of my friends after school, and since she lived nearby and I didn’t have a car, I would usually just walk to her house if the weather permitted it. It was a nice spring afternoon, so I did just that.

As I entered my friend’s neighborhood, I suddenly heard the slam of someone’s front door. Coming barreling out of this house was a woman in her sixties, wearing nothing but a bathrobe and flip-flops. At first, I didn’t think it had anything to do with me, so I just glanced briefly in her direction and kept walking by until she shouted.

Woman: “Who do you think you are?!”

I stopped and turned. There was nobody else on the street or walking on the sidewalk that she could be referring to.

Me: “Sorry? Did you mean me?”

Her face turned red with rage.

Woman: “What do you think you’re doing here?!”

Again, I was still really confused as to what was going on, and I had no idea why this random person was just yelling at me for a reason I couldn’t discern.

Me: “What?”

Woman: “You don’t belong here!”

Me: “What do you mean? I’m just on my way to meet up with my friend at her house.”

Woman: “Your people don’t belong in this nation! This is America!”

This is kind of where it clicked for me.

Me: “You’re right. This is America. That means I have the right to practice whatever religion I believe in. That includes Islam.”

Woman: “Go back to whatever country you came from!”

This was the part that just made me mad. I’d dealt with Islamophobia before, but I’m not an immigrant, and I’d never been told to “go back to my country” for being Muslim before.

Me: “Lady, I was born here, my parents were born here, and their parents were born here. This is my country.”

She then started screaming, “PROVE IT!” at the top of her lungs over and over again. I had no idea what on earth to do. It wasn’t like I just had my birth certificate on me or anything, and besides, I didn’t want to have to prove anything to this lady. I just started walking away.

Then, she grabbed onto my hijab and tried to pull it off. She yelled, “PROVE IT!” again but, luckily, my hijab didn’t come off completely and just slid back. I had an undercap on anyway, so my hair was still covered. Instinctively, I pushed her away from me just enough that she let go of my hijab, and I took off running.

Several of her neighbors were emerging from their homes to get a look at what all the yelling was about, and I rounded the corner of the street my friend’s house was on. She was standing on the front porch with her mom behind her, presumably also drawn out by the woman’s noise, when I ran up the steps and promptly hid behind them. I quickly explained to them what had happened, and my friend’s mom ushered both of us inside while she called the police.

The police arrived, and the woman was arrested on charges of harassment of a minor after the entire street testified to what she had done.

My family and I feel that she was undercharged, but there’s not much that can be done about it now. The woman was apparently a very well-known and wealthy person, and since I shoved her away when she grabbed my hijab and the altercation took place near her driveway/lawn (since I was walking on the sidewalk), she claimed that I had assaulted HER and that I had been trespassing on her property.

She did end up in court for her actions, but my parents did not want me in court as a minor because they believed it would be too upsetting for me at the time, especially since she was trying to use intimidation tactics and was threatening to sue my family, and the police agreed/advised that I shouldn’t appear in court. Instead, one of her neighbors who had witnessed the whole thing was willing to testify.

The woman ended up weaseling her way out of assault changes, but she was charged with harassment of a minor and was given community service and a court order for psychological counseling. She had to pay my family heavy compensation, and she is never allowed to have contact with me, my family, or my friend and her mom ever again.

I don’t think she was ever convicted of a hate crime, but I’d have to ask my parents; I’m not 100% certain. I live in North Dakota, which is still a very conservative catholic Christian area, so I’ve dealt with rude comments about my hijab and being Muslim before. However, the following summer, the woman was arrested a second time and given jail time after one of her neighbors called the cops on her (for what, I’m not sure) and when the cops searched her home, they found crack and evidence that she was selling it.

This happened during the spring and summer of 2021, and as of the spring of 2022, she’s still in jail on possession charges. I’m not sure how long she’ll serve in jail, but I heard her family sold her house to a nice couple, and her neighborhood is glad to be rid of her.

Many years ago, we lived in a rental house in a cul-de-sac. One of the neighbors refused to interact with us because we were only renters while she owned her house. Whenever anyone parked in front of her house, she would demand they move their car because those were her parking spots.

One weekend, we were having a birthday party for our kid. We had to double-park cars in our driveway to accommodate the extra vehicles and avoid parking in front of [Neighbor]’s house. This meant two of the cars overlapped the sidewalk a little. We were in a cul-de-sac, and kids played in the street all the time, so it didn’t block anyone from walking past.

Midway through the party, a couple of cops showed up. [Neighbor] had called them to complain because her daughter couldn’t ride her bike on the sidewalk due to our parking. She could have easily gone around the cars, and the cops agreed it was stupid, but technically, it was illegal to park on the sidewalk and we’d have to move the cars.

I told them we’d had issues with [Neighbor] when we parked in front of her house. They said street parking was public parking and free for anyone as long as the vehicle didn’t remain there for an extended period of time.

Cue malicious compliance. We moved the double-parked cars to the space in front of [Neighbor]’s house, and from then on, we always parked at least one of our cars in front of her house, even if there was room in our driveway, and we parked in such a way that it blocked any other cars from parking in front of her house.

I used to live in a fairly poor neighborhood when I was still studying (poor student!). There was one dude who posed as Santa (or rather our version of it, Nikolaus) and sat there on a makeshift throne on the big plaza outside the apartment I lived in. Kids could come up to him, he’d listen to their wishes for Christmas, and he’d hand them some plush toy. For the longest time, I thought that’s some sort of thing our city does because, well, welcome to socialist Vienna.

I really thought it was some kind of city deal.

Fast forward twenty-ish years. I’m now living somewhere else, with a neat income, no longer in the neighborhood there. I happened to shop there at some point, and I saw some guy hauling out a HUGE bag with plush toys. And looking at him, it dawned on me; it was the guy from back then! He was older now, of course, but that was St. Nick from the plaza.

Me: “It’s you!”

St. Nick: “I guess so. What do you mean?”

Me: “You’re St. Nick from [Square].”

St. Nick: *Laughing* “Yeah, you one of my kids?”

Me: “Thanks, man, but I’m probably too old to be. Nah, I just saw you every year, back when I lived here. So, you still have that gig?”

St. Nick: “Gig?”

Me: “Well, the whole St. Nick gig with the town?”

St. Nick: *Laughing* “No gig, man!”

No, there was no gig. He bought the toys himself, got a license from the town to put up his throne, and handed out his own toys to the kids around the area whose parents very likely didn’t have the money to buy them any plush toys to begin with.

Now, we have a better deal: more toys, paid for by me, with the store as a supporter, giving us the toys they couldn’t sell at cost. It’s not like I have any other use for my Christmas bonus anyway; I have no family. And “St. Nick” never had to turn a kid away again because he was out of plush toys, so I’d consider that a win-win.

This happened in 2022 in our neighborhood. There is a pretty run-down house with some inconsiderate neighbors. They have a large travel trailer that is too big for the driveway and sticks out a foot into the sidewalk when it’s parked. It’s not an issue as there is plenty of room to walk around, but the kicker is that they always park one of their cars halfway in the driveway so it completely blocks the sidewalk.

They live in a corner house, so it’s dangerous for a family to walk in the street around a blind corner because the sidewalk is inaccessible. Multiple neighbors, including me, have asked them multiple times to pull their car into the driveway or park it on the street to leave the sidewalk accessible. They always say they will, but nothing changes.

Well, apparently, they got into a shouting match with one of the other neighbors over it.

Offending Neighbor: “If you don’t like it, call the city!”

Well, the other neighbor did just that.

The city came out and wrote a ticket for the SUV blocking the sidewalk and also wrote them up for the trailer that was too big to fit in the driveway, forcing them to store it in a rental space for $350 a month.