I live in the first of two houses on a dead-end road. My neighbor is about 500 feet down the road, but still visible from the beginning of the road where my house sits. He stopped by on a Friday night to let me know he was having a cookout tomorrow, so there would be a lot of cars along the side of the road. No problem, just make sure we can get in and out.

[Neighbor] had placed signs along the road saying the party was further down, with arrows pointing toward his place. I even agreed to have a few placed along my property to help clear up any confusion. Saturday, around noon, cars started arriving, rolling slowly down the road. One or two stopped at our house but moved along. Then a couple came, parked in the grass between our houses, and walked down to the neighbor’s house. I stepped outside.

Me: “Hi! Hey, please don’t park there.”

Woman #1: “Oh, we’re here for [Neighbor].”

Me: “Right, which is over there.”

Man #1: “Well, where are we supposed to park?”

Me: “Down where the arrows are pointing.

Man #1: “Oh, okay, it’s like that. Very neighborly behavior.”

Me: “Yeah … directions are difficult, huh?”

They moved their car with minimal damage to my yard. Not long after, someone else parked in the right place and walked back up to my house. I was just about at the door to direct them back when the man opened my front door and walked in.

Man #2: “Um … hello.”

Me: “You’re looking for [Neighbor], he’s the next house.”

Man #2: “Oh.”

He looks around with a slightly disgusted expression.

Man #2: “Good deal…”

He left, and I decided to lock my door to prevent another person from just walking in. *Still* someone else parked in my yard and walked up past the signs and right to my front door. They tried to open the door (without knocking), and when that didn’t work, they pounded on the window next to it.

Me: *From inside.* “You need to go next door!”

More knocking on the window.

Me: “Wrong house!”

He kicks the front door.

Me: “I’m calling the cops!”

That was enough to get him to go to the right house, but not enough to make him move his car. I had to walk down and find my neighbor at his own party.

Me: “Hey, sorry to interrupt your party here. Someone parked in my yard and tried to get in my house. I told them it was the wrong place, but they didn’t move their car.”

Neighbor: *Looking.* “Yeah… I’ll get him to move. I’m sorry.”

Ten minutes later, the SUV was out of my yard, but not without some angry feedback from the man. The rest of the guests were able to follow the directions, so there was no more drama, but I did wake up the next day to a suspiciously human-sized pile of s*** on my doorstep.

I’m weaving through the crowd, trying not to make eye contact with the usual leaflet-pushers, when one guy steps right in my path. He’s holding a laminated sign and a bundle of wobbly home-printed pamphlets. I can’t believe what I’m seeing, an honest-to-god flat earther!

Flat-Earther: “Excuse me! If you have just two minutes to spare, you’d be surprised at how obvious it is that governments and the media have been lying to you.”

Me: “I’m good, thanks!”

Flat-Earther: “You already suspect the earth isn’t round, don’t you?”

Huh? I’m just a normal-looking guy. Why does he think I look like I’d swallow his Neo/Matrix speech? It irks me, so I throw in a comment (stolen from a meme) as I walk away.

Me: “If the Earth were actually flat, cats would have knocked everything off the edge by now.”

Flat-Earther: “Laugh if you must, but that’s what the government wants. Planes just fly in circles to trick us, and—”

Me: “—Mate, Ryanair couldn’t coordinate getting my luggage from London to Corfu, but you think they can coordinate part of an international conspiracy?”

I leave it at that and continue on my way, circling back to reality.

I keep a very clean yard. In the fall, I like to get all the leaves before it rains and they become a b*** to pull up wet. My neighbor doesn’t care about his yard, as he has owned the house for a few years and still has not moved in. He lives a few states away.

I’m finishing up, sucking up the leaves with my machine. Some of them blow into the neighbor’s driveway, maybe twenty leaves total. I finish up and go inside. About twenty minutes later, there’s a knock on the door and a squad car outside, with one of the officers still inside.

Me: “Hi, officer… everything okay?”

Officer: *Visibly annoyed.* “We got a call from your neighbor. He said you blew leaves into his driveway. He wants them cleaned up.”

Me: “You mean… the driveway of the guy who doesn’t even live there? He bought the house a few years ago but hasn’t even moved in yet.”

The officer sighs and gestures behind him.

Officer: “Yeah. He called it in from his doorbell camera. Look, I just need you to clear them. He’s watching.”

Me: “Fine, no problem. I’ll grab the blower. But while I’m out there… can I ask a favor? See that old car he’s got sitting there?”

The officer turns to look at the rusting hulk that’s been dropped in the driveway for the last eight months.

Me: “Could you check if it’s tagged and insured? It hasn’t moved since the day it was shipped here.”

The tiniest smile crosses his face.

Officer: “Yeah, I can take a look.”

So, while I blew the twenty rogue leaves back off the neighbor’s driveway, the two officers started circling the car. Flashlights out, writing down the VIN, calling things in on the radio.

Through the doorbell camera, we can hear the neighbor’s voice:

Neighbor: “Hey! What’s going on? Why are you looking at my car? The problem is the leaves! The leaves!”

Turns out, our state requires any car parked in a driveway to have current tags, insurance, and a valid emissions check. His didn’t.

The officers called him directly:

Officer: “Sir, you have two weeks to get that vehicle either inside the garage or up to date on everything, or we’ll be towing it and issuing a citation.”

And that’s how a guy living three states away bought himself a ten-hour round trip to deal with his own car, all because twenty leaves dared to touch his driveway.

This story comes from my girlfriend about one of her friends. This particular woman is Armenian, and while she’s wonderfully kind to most people, don’t you DARE p*** her off. I’ll call her Mary (not her real name).

One day, Mary comes home to find that a neighbor has let a dog poop in her yard. After finding out who the neighbor was, Mary tells her not to let it happen again, but the neighbor gives her attitude. This continues on several times, and even following the neighbor to her home doesn’t convince her to stop.

Here’s where the “don’t p***-off-an-Armenian” part comes in. Mary decided to sit outside and wait to catch the perp red-handed. She videotapes her, picks up the poop, burns the video of the dirty deed to DVD, pokes a hole in the poop bag, writes “NOT IN MY YARD” in poop on the neighbor’s door, and leaves both the remaining poop and the DVD on the front doorstep.

The neighbor never let the dog poop in her yard again.

As I am walking home, I notice a car in the distance going well over the speed limit and weaving across the median. Fearing for my own safety, I hasten my pace and duck down the next side street to wait for the car to pass, hoping the car does not follow.

Rather than watch the car pass by, I hear a loud bang and see a fire hydrant rocket towards a chain-link fence. The hydrant then proceeds to somersault off the top of the fence and directly through the window of the house said fence surrounded. After a moment of freezing in shock, the driver floors the pedal, and the car disappears down the street.

Emergency services swiftly responded. The good news is nobody was home when the fire hydrant intruded, and the geyser was swiftly halted. However, there was still a ton of property damage to deal with. I gave a statement to the responding officers, outlining every detail listed above, as well as the make, model, color, and plate of the car, as well as a description of the driver.

No sooner had I finished my statement than a call came over the officers’ radio, listing a stolen vehicle of the same make, model, and license plate I just described. The officers and I could not help but chuckle.

Before my part of the story continues, there are a few crucial details, most of which I learned later.

The police found the heavily damaged car loaded with beer cans that were crushed but not pierced (save for the pop tops) and a massive stain of beer across the interior. The car had no signs of being hotwired, and this older model did not have enough computers in it to be driven by pure hacking. When questioned, the owner of the vehicle looked, sounded, smelled, and even freely admitted she was day-drinking. She was adamant she had the only keys to the vehicle and showed the police they were accounted for; police later verified these keys paired with the vehicle. And she matched my description of the driver, right down to the character on the top she was wearing.

My involvement picked up a few hours later when the police had me do a lineup. I imagine no one is surprised that the person I picked out was the owner of this “stolen” vehicle.