911. The paramedics arrived within minutes.
They gently removed her shoe—a process that
elicited another round of horrific shrieks—and
revealed a foot that was already swelling to the
size of a grapefruit and turning an ugly shade of
purple.
As they loaded her onto the stretcher, she
pointed at me from the back of the ambulance.
"I'm suing you! I'm taking your house! You're
going to pay for this!"
The ambulance doors closed, and it drove
away, leaving a puddle of spilled coffee and a
very heavy trash bin behind.
T
Chapter 11: The Lawsuit
Threat
he neighborhood was buzzing. By
noon, the Sunnyvale Meadows Facebook group
was a warzone of speculation. Brenda’s allies
claimed I had attempted murder. My silent
supporters, the ones who had suffered under her
HOA tyranny for years, were quietly sending me
emojis of high-fives and trophies.
Later that afternoon, a police cruiser pulled
into my driveway. Two officers stepped out,
looking incredibly tired.
"Afternoon, sir," the older officer said. "We
received a complaint from a Mrs. Brenda
Carmichael. She claims you purposefully booby-
trapped your trash receptacle to cause her
physical harm."
I invited the officers inside and offered them
coffee. I sat them down at my kitchen table.
"Officers, I am a law-abiding citizen," I said
calmly. "I have been experiencing a persistent
issue with vandalism. Every week, someone was
knocking my trash bin into the street, causing a
mess that I was subsequently fined for by the
HOA—which Mrs. Carmichael runs."
I pulled out my tablet. "So, I installed a
camera to see who the vandal was. Here is the
footage from last week." I played the video of
Brenda casually roundhouse kicking my empty
bin. The officers raised their eyebrows.
"And here," I continued, switching files, "is
the footage from this morning."
We watched the new video. Brenda
marching up, looking around, and launching a
full-force kick into the heavy bin, followed by her
dramatic collapse. The younger officer had to put
his hand over his mouth to muffle a laugh.
"As you can see," I explained, "she
intentionally trespassed on my property to
vandalize my belongings. Now, because she kept
breaking my standard bins, I decided to reinforce
the base of my new bin with some leftover
concrete from a patio project so it wouldn't tip
over in the wind. I didn't ask her to kick it. I
didn't force her to kick it. She assaulted a
stationary, inanimate object on my private
property of her own free will."
The older officer sighed, rubbing his temples.
"Sir, you understand she has three broken
metatarsals and a fractured toe?"
"I am very sorry to hear she injured herself
while attempting to vandalize my property," I
replied with a perfectly straight face. "Would you
like me to press charges for the attempted
property damage?"
The officers exchanged a look. "No, sir," the
older officer said, standing up. "I think the
universe has handled this one. We'll inform Mrs.
Carmichael that no criminal charges will be filed
against you."
But the real victory happened within the
neighborhood. The rumors of the video had
reached a fever pitch. At the next HOA meeting,
which Brenda attended via wheelchair with her
leg in a massive cast, the room was packed. It
wasn't just her cronies; it was the silent majority.
The people whose fences she had measured,
whose children she had yelled at, whose lives she
had micromanaged.
Mr. Henderson stood up and demanded a
motion of no confidence against the current
board. Brenda shrieked into her microphone that
this was an illegal coup.
But I stood up, connected my tablet to the
community center projector, and played the
video on a ten-foot screen. The entire room