“Would you do it again?”
I considered lying.
After all, Richard had deserved a lesson.
But I remembered the sound of the Mercedes striking my porch and the sickening sight of that broken support.
“No,” I said. “I’d find another way.”
A few days later, Richard pulled into his driveway while I was watering the new grass.
He stepped out, noticed me, and raised one hand.
I returned the gesture.
We weren’t friends.
Maybe we never would be.
But the disrespect had stopped, and I no longer felt the need to prove anything whenever I saw him.
For six months, I’d wanted Richard to understand that my property wasn’t his to use.
I finally got what I wanted.
It took a concrete wall, a wrecked Mercedes, and a damaged porch to teach us both a lesson.
Being right about a problem doesn’t mean every way of solving it is right.
