Won't you be my neighbour?

So, I'm in my underwear in front of this idiot machine and watching a few choice episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" when the phone rings. Caller--ID says unknown name, private number. Well, I'm more than willing to answer the phone when I'm expecting a call and I'll answer if I know who's calling and I want to talk to you but this privacy shit is for the birds. Blocking your data means that you're either a telemarketer or a bill collector or you're too pussy-assed to let your name and number show on my display. Fine...I get it, privacy's important but if you value your privacy more than a conversation with me then I don't wanna' know ya and we sure as hell aint gonna' talk on the phone.

Low and behold, there's a message waiting. Hmmm...okay, I'll play the message game...that's cool...you listened to mine so I'll listen to yours. So I punch in the codes that keep my messages private and listen. "Hello, this is Constable X calling for [the author's wife]. Can you please call me back at XXX-XXXX. Thank you..." My only thought at this moment is "why the fuck do the cops wanna' talk to my wife?" Really, she's the most law-abiding, kind and nonthreatening person I've ever met...I mean, she brakes for chipmunks crossing in front of the car, she pets every dog that walks by her and married me of all people.

And as it's Sunday and barely a quarter after ten in the morning, she's not up. (I wouldn't have been except that I was running snot out my nose like a steady drip of...well, snot.) But I want to know what the hell's going on so I take her the phone.

"Hey, babe," I say with the phone a half inch from her nose. "The cops called you, there's a message."

"Cops?" she asks. I can imagine her using the same voice if I suddenly grew a third testicle.

"Yup. Call them, will you?"

She does and I wait to see what's happening. She's switched around a few times and ends up leaving a message for Constable X. By this time I'm figuring that it can't be too bad. If she's done something really wrong we wouldn't be getting a phone call. Shit, if she'd done something really wrong and we did get a phone call I sure as fuck wouldn't be getting her to call them back. In any case, she goes back to sleep and I get back to the antics of Doctors Sheldon Lee Cooper and Leonard Leaky Hoffstaeder.

At noon someone rings the doorbell. No one rings my doorbell unexpectedly...I just don't have anyone who ever wants to come over. Glancing out the window I see a North Bay City police cruiser. Irrationally, my first thought is, "They're never gonna' take me alive!" But then I reach back through the haze of three morning screwdrivers to remember the phone call. Shit! They're here for my baby-girl and she's the nicest, kindest person in the world and they'll never take us alive.

So, I let the wife know that the cops are here and cover my shame with a robe before answering the door. The cop's cute enough that I think, "Strippergram?" but I know that's the vodka talking. She asks if my Mom's home and I'm all, "Huh? She's in Utah." And then the cop asks for my wife by name. "Yeah," I said, "she knows you're here?" And the cop asks if she can come in. Seeing as I moved the meth lab and the white-slave ring accounting department across town last week I step aside and admit her.

The wife's bleary eyed and tired looking when she comes to the door. The cop confirms her identity and says something about a car accident. We're both like, what the hell are you talking about? The wife's so discombobulated from being woken up by someone else that I suggest maybe she'd like to go out with the officer and see what's up. The officer agrees and they're gone.

Here's what happened...at some point last week my wife's left front bumper brushed against the car parked in the space next to ours hard enough that some paint transferred. My neighbour, who's a member of our nation's armed forces, decides that he doesn't want to deal with me directly (for whatever reason...I am a scruffy, shiftless ne'er-do-well apparently) and calls the cops. Constable Strippergram is the end result of that phone call. In the bad old days I would have gone ballistic in this kind of a situation but my wife has mellowed me considerably. Instead of calling this fucking dough-boy a fucking dough-boy I listen to the officer explaining that she won't be charging my wife under the Criminal Code (like that could have happened because there was never any intent to damage pus-balls's shitty little rice burning hatchback in the first place) and that both parties need to bring their vehicles to the collision reporting centre on Princess Street. Then the officer says that we should hash these things out on the spot and come to resolution.

Listen, my wife's no Chatty Cathy and doesn't do well speaking to people she's never met. I tell the pus-arsed mincing fairy shit-lipped cry-baby across the hall (who has supply-tech written all over his weak chinned ferret face), in my best customer service voice (with extra syrup) that we have no trouble paying for any damage to his car. "But," I say, "why didn't you just leave a note on the car or maybe cross the hall and knock on the door if you had a beef with us? Why call the laws on us?" He mumbles something about not knowing how to pursue the issue and some shit about covering his bases and I'm thinking, If this guy's any indication of what Canada's military has become then I'm gonna' start learning Mandarin and Farsi tomorrow.

In the end it was an amicable deal but there's a part of me that knows this isn't over yet. I am so pissed off that I can't see straight! He called the cops about a scratch I could have made with my fingernail! We live right across the hall from each other and he never once asked about this. I swear to Christ by all that's good and holy that Mr. Fred Rogers himself would bitchslap this pseudo-soldier and feed him to the Kingdom of Makebelieve! Yeah, yeah...I can here the more reasonable among you saying, "Leave it go, Air. What's done is done." or "It could have been worse." And all I'm thinking is, Yeah, it could have been worse. Constable Strippergram might have had a soldier fetish and sent my wife to the bucket for something that didn't even register at the time. I've had any number of sweet revenge schemes go through my head in the five hours since that I'm starved for action. Deep down (and for legal purposes) I know that nothing's ever gonna' come from any of them (yet) but what's a simple man to do in the face of such a shitty neighbour?

Peace...for the time being.