Lindsey didn’t just live in the neighborhood – she presided over it. When our two cars appeared in the rented driveway, it must have registered on her personal radar like unidentified aircraft in restricted airspace.
Her “welcome wagon” routine was impressively transparent – the cookies just edible enough to maintain plausible deniability, the conversation just friendly enough to mask the interrogation. “The HOA has standards,” she explained with the patient tone of someone explaining gravity to a toddler. “One car per household. It’s really very simple.”
We thought she’d drop it. We were wrong.
The predawn roar of diesel engines announced Lindsey’s counterstrike. We burst outside to find our vehicles being hoisted onto flatbeds while Lindsey observed from a safe distance, her expression a masterpiece of faux sympathy covering naked triumph.
Then we showed our cards.
“That little sticker there?” I said, pointing to the nearly invisible marking on my rear window. “Means this isn’t just a car. It’s federal property.” Lindsey’s coffee cup froze halfway to her lips as the tow truck operators suddenly developed sudden hearing problems.
The next morning’s visit from the Justice Department was everything we’d hoped for. The crisp black suit. The mirrored sunglasses. The calm, professional delivery of phrases like “obstruction of justice” and “twenty-five thousand dollars in damages.” As Lindsey’s perfect world crumbled around her, we didn’t say “I told you so.”
We didn’t need to.
