Their Own Playbook
There’s a particular type of person who, for some inexplicable reason, feels like they’re the only thing standing between society and total collapse. That was my neighbor.
She was aloof and paranoid, and she’d imagine threats from almost everywhere…which made the fact that she thought of herself as some kind of secret agent all the more annoying.
This neighbor was always trying to find ways of getting me (and anyone else whom she thought of as suspicious) to move out of the building.
She’d stage loud telephone calls with “headquarters” about the alarming behavior of the other tenants, like my tendency to get home after nine in the evening, which was clearly scandalous. She’d also frequently yell at the people who’d stand on the corner to light up.
On one occasion, I heard her shouting at someone over the placement of a flowerpot in their window, which was obviously an indication that they were selling illicit substances. Then, one afternoon, I found an “official notice” taped to a wall in the stairwell.
It was perhaps the most ridiculous attempt at a government-sponsored document that I’d ever seen. The atrocious grammar, poorly Photoshopped seal, and the distinct absence of any legitimate contact information made the thing about as realistic as a scene from NCIS.
Furthermore, the reference to “the past two years” seemed to indicate me as her primary target, since I was, as far as I knew, the only resident who had been there for less time than that.
Still, since the notice was clearly meant to scare someone, I decided to return the favor by taking a page out of my neighbor’s own playbook. This led me to stand outside of her apartment while staging my own fake phone call: “You should see the notice; it’s terrible!
Haha, yeah, it’s like they didn’t know that impersonating a federal official can get you into some serious trouble! Anyway, the real FBI are on their way, and they’re going to dust for fingerprints. Whoever made that notice is looking at a lot of time behind bars!”
I went back inside my apartment after that… and within seconds, I heard my neighbor’s door open. There was the sound of hurried footsteps rushing towards the stairwell, followed by an equally hurried retreat.
When I went out to check five minutes later, the notice was gone. I’ve since moved away, but for the rest of the time that I lived there, the lady never bothered me again. Story credit: Reddit / (RamsesThePigeon)