Neighbor on (the Pain In) the Backside

I apologize for the length of this one.  As it's purpose was to be informative as well as entertaining, I don't have the luxury of splitting it into smaller pieces.

I really did want to do my 3 part St Paddy's Day special all at once...but circumstances have distracted me.

Circumstances like sitting down after bringing Crikey home from school, planning out the making of the Irish Dinner (none of that corned beef and cabbage - we are authentic here)...relaxing for a bit...

"MOM.  There's a man outside our fence taking pictures of our house!"

I get out there in time to see the fellow walking away.  I call out:

"HEY.  CAN I HELP YOU?"  I admit, my tone of voice was not a welcoming one, true.  However, I think I can be granted a little indulgence here.

This pillar of society just walks away, into the trees behind our house.  Hmmm.

Now, my land line had been down for a few days, and I hardly get any cell reception at my house, so calling the police was a bit of a challenge.  I texted Marshall and Elle, asking them to do so, and tried on my own.  I finally got through; an officer came over.

He questioned Crikey, who, while I am very proud of how he came right in to tell me about the Creepy Old Guy, he did NOT give me all of the information.  So, it is while he's giving his statement to the policeman that I learn:

CRIKEY:  And then he asked me the dogs' names.

Wait a fucking minute.  WHAT?  I do that slow turn to the boy, and ask:

"He spoke to you???"

For the record, I did not lose my calm.  I did not interrupt his narrative further.  However, what has started as a mild case of berserker rage was slowly escalating to something a little more potent.

Let's speed up this part: 

There was a man.  He had a camera.  He took pictures of our dogs, our house.  He talked to my child (thinking he was unsupervised).  He left when I came out.  Officer found footprints adjacent to our fence, and a trail leading back to the condos 150 yards from our property. 

At first, I thought it was our neighbor.  Reasoning?  He's a nutjob with a history of throwing dog feces at children walking their dogs, aiming for children when he's driving through the neighborhood, taunting dogs (and then calling animal control to complain about barking).  He was IDed by our next door neighbors' babysitter as doing the photograph-then-turn-tail-when-confronted act in their yard (though, for all of his faults, it's nice that's he's been exonerated from this one - read on).  He's also been suspected of killing a few of the neighborhood cats.  Personally, until this incident, my encounters with him have been limited.  He left a passive aggressive note on my car about Marshall's parking habits; he's been quite civil to me when I've approached him about our dogs' barking (though he gets quite apoplectic when complaining about our dogs to the neighbors).  It seemed the logical place to start.

Now, if it was CNG (Crazy Neighbor Guy), I have to admit, I was not worried about Crikey's safety.  He's an ass (with no tolerance for children) but he only lashes out at kids when they directly inconvenience him.  My main concern was the possibility that he'd throw poisoned food over the fence, neutralizing the dogs that way.

However, never let it be said that I'm unfair.  If it was CNG, I want him nailed to the wall.  But if it wasn't...

My mother texted me the next morning, suggesting that I shouldn't let the kids go outside.  While I understood her point - the sheer notion of hiding my children and my dogs inside Pissed. Me. Off.  This is their home.  Marshall's home.  My home.  Our yard.  Our property.  I absolutely refuse to be frightened while on it.

I think it's quite telling that, when I announced this situation as my Facebook status, the response from my friends was immediate, outraged and concerned (I really do have the best people EVER in my life) There was also a kind of anticipation of how I would deal with the situation - I have to say I feel very flattered by the absolute confidence everyone had in my ability to take care of the situation...one way or another.  To sum it up:

He picked the wrong Bitch to piss off.

As usual, I sent Crikey outback with the dogs when he got home from school.  I have a collapsible chair that I keep in my car trunk for the sporting events I attend.  I set that up on he back deck.  Along with my lapdesk, netbook, glass of seltzer.  One last thing...

The expression on Crikey's face was one to remember when I brought out Marshall's 12 gauge rifle.  With big eyes, a half smile and a nervous laugh, Crikey asked:

"Uh, mom, don't you think you takin' this a bit too far?"  (nervous chuckle)

"NO." 

(a little more heh, heh, hehs... and an expression of "are you for freaking real with me?"

There is a fine line between having your children live in terror of their world and instilling in them healthy caution.  As intelligent as Crikey is (inconveniently so with matters such as these), a little information would quickly lead to understanding the whole, terrifying picture.  So we have, perhaps, erred on the side of too much caution.  Now that the situation has come to somewhat of a head...

"Crikey, do we know for a fact that he's not a kidnapper?"  I hated pointing it out.

He blinked.  He looked away.  I saw the flicker of "oh shit, I didn't think of that."  He looked back at me. 

My son was on the teetering edge of  Fear.  I was on that same edge with Hate.  And then:

He looked at the shotgun.  His eyes widened with the understanding that Mom had a gun, she knew how to use it, and she'd kill the shit out of anyone before she let that person take/hurt/kill him or his brother.

He looked back at me, and the biggest grin spread across his face.  Fear was gone.  Caution was there.

And I had become Han Solo.

Before it seems to the world that I had lost my mind, Ted Nugent style - allow me to point out a couple things. 

1 - I had (and have) no intention of harming another human being unless that individual poses and clear and present threat to the safety of my children, Marshall or myself (or other people - you get the point).

2 - The reason I had the 12 gauge out is because it was not only big enough to see from behind our property - it was not loaded.  Granted, the .45 in my lap was - but I was working under the concept of the big visible gun working as a prophylactic measure.

3 - Nothing would please me more than to know that it is unnecessary for me to prepare myself for the trauma it would cause me (to say nothing of my kids) if I did have to take the life of another human being.  It's easy to act all badass "oh, I'm gonna do (this or that - insert violent act of choice)" - but actually Killing A Person - that is huge.  More enormous than the crime statistics would have us believe, far more painful (to the person pulling the trigger) than anyone (who hasn't had to do that) can imagine.  For all of my badassery, for all of my willingness to do whatever it takes to protect my children, for all of the humor I used to carry myself through this experience, I dreaded the idea of actually having to do it.

That's right, I said humor.  This post hasn't been funny so far...as an apology for that, I shall share the other options that came up through the brainstorming with Marshall and my awesome friends.

The first thing I did was change my profile picture to a cartoon drawing from Brilliant Blogger Extraordinaire Allie Brosh (of Hyperbole and a Half - if you haven't read it, you must start.  She is possibly one of the most hilariously brilliant human beings who ever lived). (yeah, I used "brilliant" twice - she deserves both):


Also, the lines from 99 Biker Friends, by Bowling for Soup, also seem helpful:

"Let's get the A-Team, 50 Cent with his bling-bling and a couple of prison guards...and I have 99 Biker Friends, who wanna kick your ass!"

Speaking of the A-Team, the brainstorming went with the theme of  "WWMD" - What Would Murdock Do?

Install a nanny cam on the culprit's property with a Internet live feed so we can all tune in and watch HIM.  "creepyoldguy.com" maybe?

Install motion detectors that play Hank Williams Jr.'s "A Country Boy Can Survive" as an alarm (specifically the line that goes "I got a shotgun rifle and a four wheel drive and a country boy can survive")

Electrify the fence

Barbed wire

Electric barbed wire

(and since he was CLEARLY banking on our being New England Liberals (which is a realistic assumption for our area) and therefore unarmed: 

Hanging a sign on the outside of the fence (where his footprints were found) that reads:

HEY BITCH.  YEAH, YOU.  TURN AROUND.  SEE THAT TREE?  (said tree will have a sign that says "YEAH, THIS ONE")  THAT TREE IS WITHIN THE RANGE OF MY SHOTGUN.  I GREW UP IN THE SOUTH AND "HE NEEDED KILLIN'" IS A VALID DEFENSE THERE :)

It turns out that CNG wasn't home at all that day. 

In seemingly unrelated news:  over the past year or so, there's been a car slowly driving up and down our street.  Not every day - or even every week.  Just often enough that even I noticed it. I figured it was city related (many folks around here use personal vehicles even when doing city work).

Yesterday, we took the boys to see the Harlem Globetrotters.  On the drive back, Marshall got a call from the police, letting us know that they'd been called about a car driving slowly on our road. 

Turns out our next door neighbor, Ava, had seen a man walking around outside her yard and toward mine.  She called to him, he slunk behind a tree, and then, as her husband went to follow him, he left...back to the condos.  They called the police.

Shortly after that, the car was back, cruising our street.  Ava  walked into the road and stopped him.   Same jacket, same hat as the man she had just seen minutes before.

She asked him if he was lost, if he needed help - that kind of thing.  His response was civil, though not pleasant.  However, when Ava pointed out that she recognized him, he smirked and said that he didn't know what she was talking about, and that she couldn't prove anything anyway.

AVA:  (I'm paraphrasing) Actually, I recognize you.  There are at least two children who will recognize you.  Also, my babysitter not only can identify you, but would be happy to testify against you.

That did make him pause...for a bit.  Then he identified himself as the President of the Condo Association and started going on about the evil of my dogs (why he needs pictures of their yard because of my dogs is still unclear to me).  Since she knew it was only a matter of minutes before the police showed up, she kept him talking.  When he got to the part where he was going to go to the police and complain to the mayor, the patrol car pulled up.  Very nice timing, I have to say.

Over the course of that conversation, he learned two things:

1 - He had underestimated the opposition:  this neighborhood is full of law enforcement, fire department, to say nothing of the ex-Marines and Airborne Rangers.

2 - He would be arrested if he came on our property again

That is where the situation stands as of this writing.  Ava's put up her no trespassing sign.  I'm going to make one or two.  I'm going to clean up the language a bit, since there are kids back there, but my signs are going to be pretty creative.

And I want him to know about the shotgun.

The link for Hyperbole and a Half is:

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

my favorite intro to Hyperbole and a Half is this one, though:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/02/boyfriend-doesnt-have-ebola-probably.html