Four or five months ago I drank a few beers and wandered onto a construction site looking for scrap wood. I found a piece. It was a two by eight by ten. I put it under my arm and carried it like a surfboard. I was walking up the hill to my house when I heard a voice say, "Hey, where are you going with that?"
I turned to see who it was. It was a tall skinny man with long gray hair. He was standing on his porch. He looked like a old hippie.
"I thought it was scrap!" I told him.
"It don't look like scrap to me."
We went back and forth until I finally turned around and put the wood back where I found it. I walked away. But I was mad about it. What an asshole. Who does this guy think he is? It's just a piece of scrap-wood.
Ever since, I've had an watchful eye out for the man. I saw him a couple of times while jogging. We were amiable. Although it was an awkward amiable.
Today I was sitting on my porch trying to make a phone call when I saw the man walking his dog. I could see him, but he couldn't see me.
The man's dog took a shit on my neighbor's property and he didn't bother to pick it up.
Aha! I got him!
But then the man walked over to the fire hydrant. I watched him as he unscrewed the big yellow cap to the hose connection and walk off with it. A Fed-X truck pulled up just then. I saw the man put the cap under his shirt to hide it. I knew then that he was stealing the cap for sure.
Perfect!
I walked to the curb and yelled, "Excuse me! is there a reason why you took the cap off the fire hydrant?'
The man turned and sheepishly walked toward me. "You got me," he said.
"Yeah, and I saw your dog take a shit. And you didn't even bother to pick it up!"
I'm not much into revenge, but in this instance, there was nothing sweeter.
