Debby Loses her Shit.

 I try. I really do try hard. Today, I failed. 

We have a neighbor. He drinks too much. Has a tendency to pee in the side yard because he's too lazy to do the stairs to use his facilities. He is a trump-er tried and true. After the last election, he began to yell from his porch every time he saw us. "What do you think of tRUMP now?" or "HAHAHHAAA! tRUMP won, how do  you like that??" So four years ago, I stopped dead in my tracks and said, "Listen. We have been neighbors for quite a few years. This crap is going to stop. You will stop yelling about your politics. We don't want to hear it." 

I stood right there and fixed him with a look. 

He said, in a quiet voice, "I can do that." 

I said, "Good," and continued up the driveway. And that was that. 

The intervening years have been pretty quiet. He is paranoid as heck. Has cameras watching the street in front of the house. He owns one old car. One old truck. A trailer. 3 motorcycles, takes up all the parking in front of his building, and he is paranoid about his stuff. He thinks everyone is out to get his stuff. 

He's riled up about something. He's been glaring and being mad and giving us the bird. We went out to dinner a couple weeks ago. My sister said, "What's wrong with your neighbor? Why is he flipping us off?"

"*sigh* It's what he does." 

Tim trimmed the bushes at the end of our driveway. They blocked his view when he was trying to back out of the driveway. Part of them were over the line. He trimmed our side. Dan-the-man was pretty upset. We ignored him. He escalated the glaring and the flipping off and swearing at us when we came and went.

Today, he blew a fit. We had thrown his grill cover on the ground and it had cost him big money and by god, we were going to give him that money. Tim got mad. "We did NOT throw your grill cover on the ground..." but just that quick he was ranting about his bushes. He said something about his trailer, which for the record, we never touched either. 

And it just made me mad. I was shrieking like a fish wife, loud enough for it to be heard up and down the street. "WE DID NOT THROW YOUR GRILL COVER ON THE GROUND!!!! WE HAD A PRETTY BAD STORM ROLL THROUGH LAST NIGHT. YOU EVER THINK THAT MAYBE IT BLEW OFF IN THE WIND?" 

  He looked a little shocked. 

But I roared on: "AND BEFORE YOU SAY ONE WORD ABOUT THE FUCKING BUSHES, THEY ARE NOT YOUR BUSHES! YOU ARE A TENANT. YOU DON'T OWN THE HOUSE! YOU DON'T OWN THE BUSHES!" 

He waved his arm with his cigarette. "I know it," he said.

"SO SHUT UP ABOUT THEM!" 

And I wound up with, "AND WHILE WE'RE TALKING, YOU NEED TO TAKE YOUR DRUNK ASS UPSTAIRS TO WHEN YOU NEED TO PEE. I'M ABOUT SICK OF SEEING THAT. GOT ANYTHING ELSE FOR ME? NO? THEN KEEP YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH SHUT. JUST SHUT UP, BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE OF YOUR MESS." 

He continued to run his mouth about money owed.

The police were called. 

That was my day.