The she-devil from Hades came out of the house and headed straight for the helper. After a minute or so of arm waving and other gesturing she stopped just long enough for him to point in my direction. She headed towards me on a trot. "Stop digging f-ing holes in my f-ing yard!" Those were the first words I was able to hear. The language got even worse. I started laughing. She cussed some more and demanded I stop laughing. I couldn't do it.
Finally, I began to try to explain what we were doing and how we were at the very edge of the property along the street edge. Her response, of course, was to point about 15 feet away to the edge of the roadbed and declare, "The g-d road is over there, you d***a**." No amount of standard explanation was going to calm her down so I completely changed the subject and began explaining that I was the one who had put those bars there in the first place back in 2000 when Wilma (her landlord) bought the empty lot and moved in the house the she-devil was occupying as a renter. That slowed down the cussing a bit. Then I said, "You're Stacy's wife, aren't you?" Suddenly, she was thoroughly confused as to how I, a total stranger, would know that as she nodded. I quickly explained how I had been the next door neighbor to his grandparents and three bachelor uncles for over 20 years. Then I quickly said, "And, back in 2001, Paul (her father-in-law) worked for me doing the exact same things that we are doing here now."
As she started to walk away I asked her, "Didn't you recognize Jim when you approached him?" She spun around and asked why would she know him. I explained how about two weeks ago she had gone out to his farm with a mutual friend and Jim had graciously given them an extended tour of all the critters on his exotic animal farm. That hit her like a ton of bricks so she headed his way to apologize. I'm not sure he listened very well as he was too focused on trying to figure out what he was going to do with the new anal orifice she had chewed in him a few minutes earlier.
You sir have a wonderful gift for story telling.
I was reading that first part to my wife and she said, "He is you." Apparently she thinks that I would have started laughing at that B**** too.
She sounds like a winner. Looking at the positive side though, it is refreshing to hear about renters that actually seem to care about what the yard looks like. In my subdivision those kind of renters are almost as rare as Unicorns....
We run into similar situations all the time in production housing. It usually occurs when a homeowner selects a lot with vacant lots on each side. They get moved in and go to Home Depot and buy all kinds of goodies to make the grass/plants grow. Since most lot’s these days are 50’ wide with a 40’ wide house and 5’ side setbacks it doesn’t take long for the grass to start growing onto the adjacent lots. During this grass growth the homeowner mows it and subliminally assumes his lot line is where the grass stops. This is where the fun starts.
Eventually the adjacent lots are sold and a house started. The original homeowner calls me and starts explaining (expletives deleted) how WE are stealing his land blah, blah, blah. Most of the time I can successfully calm them down and explain things to them so they can understand what’s going on. Every so often I do have to visit the site and physically show them their corners and explain the survey as best as I can in layman’s terms. I actually enjoy these type “problems” and the interaction with the homeowner that follows. It helps the public, who, for the most part are clueless as to Surveys, understand how what’s on the paper relates to what’s on the ground. Most of the time the “hostiles” are very appreciative and have a much better attitude now that they think they understand Surveying. The good will associated with this is priceless to me. B-)
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The two f-ing holes that had been made were about four inches in diameter and about one or two inches deep at the most. This was in an area of typical mowed grass with no high maintenance type of improvement.
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It didn't take long in this business to discover the power our words carry. We can inflame or calm folks in an instant. It's nice to hear someone putting effort into the latter...
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It's amazing what a simple smile will do. Heard it take something like 25 muscles to frown, but only about 8 to smile.
More work to frown 🙂 .
"two f-ing holes"
> The two f-ing holes that had been made were about four inches in diameter and about one or two inches deep at the most. This was in an area of typical mowed grass with no high maintenance type of improvement.
Although thirty years ago I had a similar confrontation. We were hired by retiree "A" who had a pecker-war feud with his neighbor, retiree "B". The two old duffs had nothing better to do than argue about whose property the crepe myrtles occupied.
We found all the pins. I was cautious enough to "excavate" from my client's side and only disturb enough Bermuda to feel the top of the pin with my pinger and set a flagged 20penny through the grass to set up on. I also made darn sure that no tripod foot was on the neighbor's property...
Didn't matter..as soon as I had the gun stuck in the ground ol' tums-breath(neighbor)came running out of his house screaming and yelling about digging up his yard. He then tried to kick the tripod leg. It was stuck in pretty good and the old boy hurt his foot. My chainman kept me from giving him a good old fashion ass-whipping. I was hot.
His wife was calling the cops while all this was going on. The officer arrived and I was foolish enough to think that he would understand what was going on. He didn't. He told me I had to get my instrument "off this man's property". I told him it actually wasn't ON his property. Well, I had to leave anyway..."until THEY get things figured out..".
Like what needs to happen? Maybe call a surveyor to "figure things out?" What a crock o' crap...we left. Police Officers sometimes have the mental integrity of a soup sandwich..
A few days later we were summoned back to complete the survey. Our client stood in his yard quietly and "Patton" stood in his yard. They both watched as we marked the line..and just as my client had suspected, his crepe myrtles were on HIS own property by a couple of feet.
I wanted the old man to come over and apologize for kicking my instrument. He didn't. But I noticed as he limped back into the house he had house slipper and an ankle wrap on the foot he had used to kicked the gun.
Yep. He was sorry. He didn't have to say it....B-)
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Only two holes??? If memory serves me correctly (which it doesn't) I was under the impression that when you were a calf, digging holes was a specialty of yours. 😉
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It's unusual for a renter to be so caring about the property they're renting, so that's a plus for her. And, she finally did calm down and then even apologized! Coulda' been MUCH worse:-O
"two f-ing holes"
I had reason to not be surprised by her demeanor (or is that de-meaner). I had simply hoped she wouldn't be around. Although I had never met her, I knew a little too much about her. Including the fact she had finished up another round of rehab (the kind that doesn't involve surgery) a couple weeks ago. Might have been alcohol related or improper usage of controlled substances or something else. Don't know, don't care. At least I knew her bubble didn't always float all the way to the top.
About 30 minutes after the incident we were done and had gone to a nearby convenience store to cool off by sitting in the area with several booths/tables. I happened to look up during a conversation with store's co-owner and saw the she-devil's mother-in-law going out the door. I was a good boy and didn't chase her down to congratulate her on having such a lovely person for a daughter-in-law. But, I definitely gave it some serious thought.
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That's right. We knothead calves would gather up some nights to dig holes if we couldn't find any of our parents asleep so we could 'tip' them.