My Neighbor Charged Her Electric Car From My House Every Night Without My Permission – I Didn’t Call the Authorities, but I Did Something Better to Teach Her a Lesson

I looked at the gnome by the garage.

“Not tonight,” I told him.

****

The sun went down. I turned off the porch light, poured myself a glass of iced tea, and sat in the dark behind the geraniums. I felt like a woman a third my age on a stakeout.

All Monica had to do was leave my property alone.

The Tesla drifted in with its headlights off.

Monica stepped out in her yoga pants and slippers, cable in hand, humming under her breath. She looked so comfortable. Like my garage belonged to her.

Then she stopped.

“What in the world,” she muttered.

She stared down at the gnome sitting right where she needed to plug in. My gnome. Her sloppy blue paint job — sitting there like a tiny, chipped-nose witness.

“Ugly little thing,” she said. “Move.”

She nudged him with the toe of her slipper. When he did not budge, she gave him a harder shove.

Something thin snapped tight behind the gnome.

Monica frowned and looked up.

Too late.

I started recording on my phone.

The can tipped, wobbled, and emptied itself in one glorious splash directly onto the top of Monica’s head. Pink paint poured down her hair, her shoulders, her yoga pants, her slippers.

She stood there frozen for one full second. Bright cotton-candy pink from crown to toe.

Then the scream came.

It was not a scream, really — it was a shriek that could shatter porcelain.

Lights snapped on up and down the street. Doors opened. Somewhere a dog started barking like the world was ending.

Monica stood in the middle of my driveway, dripping pink onto the concrete, still clutching her charging cable like a leash on an invisible dog. Her mouth opened and closed.