I work at a rooftop bar and grill overlooking the Mississippi River.

Customer: “So, where’s the river?”

Me: “Ha ha.”

Customer: “What’s so funny?”

Me: “Uh… nothing, I just—”

Customer: “—This place charges a premium for views of the river! Where is it?!”

Me: *Questioning all of my choices in life.* “See the bridge? Directly underneath it.”

I am seated close to group of British women are drinking at this hotel’s bottomless brunch as part of a bachelorette party.

Waiter: “Would you like the Champagne bottomless brunch? Or we can add orange juice to it? In France that’s called a Mimosa.”

Guest: “In England, we call that watering down!”

They went with the champagne.

I’m a twenty-five-year-old man, and I have been living away from home ever since graduating from college. My parents both retired recently, and last summer, they decided to use some of the money they’d saved up to finally build their dream retirement home in New Orleans, where they’ve been living for the past ten years.

I come from a very tight-knit family, so I still talk to my parents every week, and they were so excited when they said they’d already picked out the location where they wanted the house built. It was an empty lot in a nice neighborhood where a house had been demolished not long before due to age, and the previous owner, who was pretty wealthy and owned numerous properties around the city, decided that the lot was worth more without the house on it.

My parents snapped it up as soon as it came on the market, but not long after construction began, they realized that they were building their dream house right next door to the lair of a wild Entitled Jerk.

The trouble started when my parents had to cut down a large oak tree that sat in the front of the lot. It was a real beauty, too, one of those big southern live oaks, and although they didn’t want to, they knew they had to remove it because it was in the way. No one likes to cut down a big beautiful tree, and believe me, if there had been a way to avoid doing it without impeding the construction, my parents would have taken it. So, they called a tree removal service, and the tree was soon gone.

A few days after the tree had been cut down, my dad was on the property talking to some of the construction guys and making sure everything was going smoothly. He was going back to his car when he saw a woman in her late fifties walk out of the house next door and head to her mailbox. My dad is a pretty chill and laid-back guy who likes to be on good terms with everyone, so he walked over and introduced himself.

Dad: *Holding out his hand* “Hi. My name’s [Dad], and my wife and I are going to be your neighbors once our house is finished. I just wanted to come over and say hi and introduce myself. It’s nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

The woman glanced at the extended hand and then looked up at my dad and glared at him.

Woman: *Snapping* “My name is none of your business. I’m not going to shake your hand because of [contagious illness], and even if there was no [contagious illness], I still wouldn’t shake your hand because you people ruined my life when you cut down my tree! I still can’t believe how selfish you are. You should both be ashamed of yourselves!”

My dad was taken aback by this and pointed out that [Woman] already had a nice big oak tree in her backyard, but [Woman] ignored him and stalked back inside her house. She never explained why she thought she was the owner of the tree that had been cut down, not once, and whenever my parents asked about it, she refused to answer. I guess it’s just one of those things we’ll never know, like what really happened to the lost Roanoke colony or the fate of D.B. Cooper.

My parents met some of their other neighbors later that day, including a nice elderly couple who lived in the other house next door to [Woman]’s, and when my dad told them what happened, the neighbors said [Woman] was like that to everyone and no one in the neighborhood liked her. They also said that [Woman] had been nasty to them for a long time, and they were in the process of selling their house because they couldn’t stand living next door to her anymore.

[Woman] soon began living up to her reputation. For months, whenever my parents would visit the house to see how the construction was coming along, she’d find something to complain or confront them about. One time, she said the construction workers were being too loud and threatened to call the police, even though it was the middle of the day. Another time, she said that the construction company was using illegal immigrants as cheap labor and threatened to call ICE and have the whole project shut down.

My dad mentioned this to the owner of the company, and the owner sent [Woman] a formal letter threatening a lawsuit if she tried. I don’t know if there were any actual grounds for a lawsuit, but the threat must have worked because ICE never showed up.

Oh, and then there was the time she tried to have my parents’ car towed for illegal parking when they parked by the curb of their still-unfinished house. The first my parents knew about this was when the tow truck showed up, but the driver took one look at where my parents’ car was parked and told [Woman] he’d send her a bill for wasting his time if she called him again.

I could go on. [Woman] did everything she could think of to try and interfere. She was absolutely relentless in her crusade to avenge a tree she never even owned.

Happily, the house was completed despite her best efforts, and my parents finally moved in not long after the holidays. My mom told me later that she caught [Woman] watching them bitterly from her window as they were taking some of their boxes inside. She was concerned that [Woman] might keep going and try something else, but I guess [Woman] was too busy wallowing in self-pity over her failure or something because things were actually quiet for a while.

But a few weeks ago (January of 2021), things changed. New Orleans has had some really bad weather lately due to the winter storms that are battering much of the southern US right now , and one night, one of those storms was so powerful that it knocked over the tree in [Woman]’s backyard. It missed falling onto her house, but it didn’t miss falling onto her shiny new Jaguar and crushing it like a beer can.

According to my folks, [Woman] didn’t discover what had happened until the following morning. When she came outside and saw the pile of scrap metal that used to be her car, she threw back her head and let out a primal scream like something out of “The Exorcist”. She had to pay a tree removal service to get rid of the tree, and then she had to pay for a tow truck to get rid of the car, too, and then she had to get a rental car.

[Woman] put her property up for sale and moved out not long afterward. Everyone in the neighborhood was glad to see her go, and my parents enjoyed watching her drive off into the sunset from the front porch of their amazing new house.

For clarification, [Woman] did not sell her house right away; she put it on the market and moved out of it as soon as she could. I don’t know where she is now, but I’m guessing she’s staying somewhere else while she waits for someone to buy the property. I don’t know if anyone has bought it yet, but since there’s a global health crisis going on, I think she’ll be waiting for some time.

I work in a touristy restaurant in New Orleans. We’ve just rolled out a Mardi Gras-themed menu, including a cocktail called “The Pink Chicken” (Malibu, Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, pineapple juice, and grenadine). I overhear a new server offering this to some customers.

New Server: “Don’t worry; it’s safe to order the Pink Chicken because we put enough alcohol in it to kill the salmonella.”

I ran over to play it off as a joke and then took the new server to the back to explain some VERY rudimentary basics.

This is my mom’s story. I have three younger sisters and no brothers. When my youngest sister was born, of course, lots of people offered congratulations and well wishes. When people — strangers, mind you — found out it was her fourth daughter, things got weird. Comments like, “No sons? I’m sorry,” or, “Oh, well, you tried,” were common.

One day at church, my sweet, strait-laced mother had enough.

Stranger: “Four girls! Aw, you were trying to have that boy.”

Mom: “Nope! We were trying to have sex.”

Years later, we were reliving the story at a party, and…

Mom: “Yep! And it was good sex!”