When Shannon moved in next door—painting her house every bold color imaginable—I shrugged it off. But things got personal when she started sunbathing—sometimes topless—right outside my 15-year-old son Jake’s window. His embarrassment boiled over one morning.
“MOM!” he burst into the kitchen, red-faced. “Can you do something about that?” I peeked out; there was Shannon on a leopard lounger, wearing the skimpiest bikini imaginable.
My polite request went nowhere—Shannon met it with mocking laughter and advice that my son needed therapy or better blinds. Incensed, I prepared to let it rest.
Two days later, I opened my front door… to a filthy toilet bowl planted squarely on my lawn. A crudely written sign announced: “FLUSH YOUR OPINION HERE!” Shannon called it “modern suburban discourse,” even joked the local gallery wanted to feature it.
I stood stunned, watching her smugly sip her drink. Something inside me snapped; it was like playing chess with a pigeon—there’s no winning that way. So I stepped back and let karma take over.
The following weeks, Shannon’s antics escalated—late-night karaoke, drum circles, wild rooftop tanning sessions. And then… chaos. Firefighters rolled up after she phoned in a “sewage leak” at the toilet. The bowl was dry and decorative—her overreaction left her looking absurd.
But the real twist came when she hauled her lounger onto her garage roof and promptly collapsed into her flower beds—muddied, humiliated by her own sprinkler system.
After that, peace returned. Shannon finally stopped the sunbathing performances and quietly built a privacy fence. One morning, Jake nervously cracked open his blinds and declared, “Is it safe to come out of witness protection now?” I grinned. “The show’s officially over,” I told him.
