I live in an apartment complex with another one right outside my windows, with some grass and sidewalks in between. I love people-watching and often take my laptop to do some work on the balcony and see if anything interesting happens. Usually, there’s nothing special, though I see some cute dogs and cats and sometimes stumble across some neighborhood drama.

(I don’t consider myself nosy, but writing this all out, it turns out I might be a little.)

Earlier this week, I went out to people-watch, and fifteen minutes after I started, I saw all of the entrances to the other apartment complex open. A person with a dog walked out from each. That already made me smile because they looked like they’d rehearsed it so the doors would open perfectly in sync. They all sort of met in the middle, let their dogs play on the grass, and then just stood there talking and laughing.

One of the ladies started talking about how you should smile at your dog because they are amazing at recognizing facial expressions and will often smile back. Then, I got to observe like four grown people all standing around their dogs, smiling at them with everything they had, and then instantly looking back at the lady who started it and gushing about how cute the dogs were with excitement only comparable to that of six-year-olds on their birthdays.

It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

The group met up a few more times this week, and they always chat about their dogs and how life is going. It’s really fun to listen to them, even if I might look like a creep.

Our neighborhood has a big old house in the middle of it. The kind older lady living there puts a neighborhood “library” out the front of her house. It’s like a big birdhouse with a glass door that contains books, bottles of water, and dog supplies for the many dog walkers in the neighborhood (treats, poop bags, and little bowls for the water).

I am walking past it one day (with my very energetic Saint Bernard) with the intention of returning a book I borrowed from it, as well as donating a new one. I walk up to a completely empty box, with a sign on the front saying:

Sign: “Sorry for the empty library! Some woman in a pick-up truck pulled up and emptied everything into her truck (books, dog treats, even the dog treat jar). We will restock as soon as we can!”

Angered, I take a photo of the sign, add the two books to the library, and then share the picture with the neighborhood WhatsApp group.

The very next day, I am taking my giant floofy bundle of energy on another walk, and I can see that the library has since been restocked with a huge pile of new books (including a thriller called “I Am Watching You”), dog treats, and some nice ceramic bowls (a kind with a natural hole in the design through which a wire has been tethered to prevent it from being taken away).

The best part is a new sign from the homeowner.

Sign: “Thank you to everyone who helped to restock the library! I came by last night to restock, and you’d done it all for me! Also, as requested, I got my son to pull the image of the pick-up truck and the woman who took it all the other day, and you can see it below! Thanks again, everyone!”

To my delight, I recognized both the truck and the woman in the picture! I took a picture of it myself. I will take great delight in going to church on Sunday to show the pastor’s wife how nice I think she looks in this new photo I have of her!

My friend messaged me right after this happened to vent. [Woman] moved into the apartment next to [Friend]’s a couple of weeks ago. [Woman] has struck up short, polite conversations with [Friend] just two times in that period, with the second being the day before this whole fiasco unfolded.

This morning at about 9:00 am, [Friend] was having a nice Saturday breakfast. (She gets up at 6:00 am on weekdays, so this was a weekend lie-in for her.) Someone started aggressively banging on her front door. When [Friend] answered, [Woman] was standing there with [Kid], her sweet five-year-old daughter, who had a little backpack on.

Woman: *Sounding very flustered* “I’m so sorry to have to ask this with no notice, but could you please watch [Kid] for a few hours? I have somewhere really important to be.”

Now, something you need to understand about [Friend] is that she can’t stand kids and has no idea how to deal with them. Like, she tenses up and gets super awkward if a kid so much as waves at her in the supermarket. [Friend] is also disabled. She uses a motorised wheelchair sometimes and a walking cane for short distances or when she’s just pottering around her own home. She lives with her girlfriend, who is also her carer. Her chronic illnesses involve fainting spells and a lot of brain fog, so by her own account, she’s absolutely not someone who should be left in charge of a child.

[Woman] has seen [Friend] using both her wheelchair and her cane and has seen [Friend]’s girlfriend (who was at work when this all happened) helping her in and out of their car.

So, [Friend] responded with a firm NO, explaining that her medical conditions meant that [Kid] would not be safe in her care and that she was not well enough at the moment to have any guests (let alone an unattended kid) in her home, anyway.

[Woman] immediately flipped from pleading and simpering to hand-on-hip indignation, accusing [Friend] of “faking” her disabilities. (Because, of course, if she can walk AT ALL, then she obviously doesn’t actually need a wheelchair, right?) She threatened to report her to Centrelink (welfare) if [Friend] didn’t watch [Kid] for her.

Never mind the fact that [Friend] isn’t on welfare. Her girlfriend has a high-paying job and [Friend] works somewhere between part-time and full-time hours from home most weeks. (She’s a g**d*** machine, and I don’t know how she manages it.) News flash: not all disabled people are unable to work. Although, of course, getting employers to actually hire us is another matter, ‘cause ableism.

Friend: “I’m not on Centrelink, and I don’t appreciate being blackmailed. Find another babysitter, because I am not it.”

And she closed her door. [Woman] kept banging on the door for a bit, but she eventually left.

About twenty minutes later, [Friend] heard a very faint, timid tapping on her front door. She said if she hadn’t been so close to it, she probably wouldn’t have heard it. She sighed heavily, having kind of already guessed what was happening. She opened the door and there was [Kid], who had clearly been crying, clutching the shoulder straps of her little backpack.

Kid: *Very softly* “Mummy said I could stay here today.”

Now, like I said, [Friend] cannot stand kids, but even she said that [Kid] was an absolute darling throughout this entire fiasco and the most she ever did was cry because her mother is clearly a monster. [Woman] had driven off and sent [Kid] to [Friend]’s door, clearly thinking that if she left [Friend] with no alternative, she’d just play along and babysit [Kid] for her, anyway — especially since [Friend] had literally no way of contacting [Woman].

WRONG.

[Friend] escaped abusive parents at a young age, and this s*** made her furious. She got [Kid] settled in front of the TV with a drink and some snacks, and she called the police.

Friend: “My neighbour just abandoned her five-year-old daughter outside of her apartment, and the kid showed up at my door, asking to come in.”

When the officers arrived, [Friend] told them the full story, and while they were appalled, she said they weren’t surprised.

Officer: “You’d be shocked at how not rare this kind of thing is.”

Which is honestly kind of the worst part of all this.

The officers took [Kid] with them and were really sweet with her, explaining to her that she wasn’t in any trouble and had done the right thing and that they were there to look after her and find out where her mummy had gone.

They were able to contact [Kid]’s father, who is currently working on finalising a divorce from [Woman] and was also appalled, but not remotely surprised by what she’d done.

This morning, [Friend] had another knock on her door, only it was the dad with [Kid] in tow. He was there so he could apologise for what his ex had done, and so he and [Kid] could thank [Friend] for looking after [Kid] and for calling the police. [Friend] said he seemed like a good guy who was clearly putting his kid first in all this, which was really reassuring to hear.

He told [Friend] that, according to his lawyer, her calling the police and handling everything the way she had would basically be a gift-wrapped custody battle win for him, because what kind of court would ever grant [Woman] custody after the s*** she’d pulled? His lawyer was over the moon when [Dad] called him!

[Friend] also asked [Dad] what had been so important that [Woman] had abandoned her own daughter over it.

It was an appointment at a nail salon. She’d taken [Kid] with her several times previously, and she just demanded that the staff babysit her and refused to even acknowledge the kid during her “me time”. When she called yesterday morning to book a last-minute appointment, the staff put their foot down and told her she could no longer bring her kid to her appointments and would be refused service if she did.

[Dad] also said that [Woman] had shown up so late to the appointment that they’d refused to see her, anyway.

So, she abandoned her daughter cuz she wanted her “me time”, to get her nails done.

[Dad] told [Friend] that “me time” is an excuse [Woman] uses to ignore her kid, basically any time she feels like it. “DO NOT talk to me during my me time!” etc.

[Dad] also asked [Friend] if she would be okay to help with his custody battle. He said he understood that her health wasn’t great, but his lawyer had said a written statement would be fine. He said while it probably wasn’t essential, since they had the police report, he wanted to have as much evidence on his side as possible, just to be sure. Of course, [Friend] agreed.

[Woman] hasn’t yet shown up at [Friend]’s door to scream at her, so [Friend]’s thinking maybe dealing with the police put some actual fear of consequences into her. We shall see.

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.