This story actually starts with my dog, my precious lovable Oreo. You see Oreo, as you may have heard, is a dog, and according to this book (one of my children’s faves) everybody poops. Hence, we can assume safely that my dog poops. I have it on good authority that he actually does this quite often. Now when we had a yard just under an acre (yes, in North Carolina and it still did not make up for the 20 mile commute to the nearest Starbucks) the poop was not so much a problem. But now we have a yard the size of a postage stamp, and regular clean-ups become necessary. My fearless husband does this task at least once a week. He scoops up the deposits with a shovel and puts them in an old cat litter container (not the cardboard ones but the big sturdy plastic ones, the ones that need a crowbar to open). Once it is full we place it in the trashcan for collection. The trash man dumpeth and the poop goeths away. Except last Monday we had a storm. And what happens in storms? trash-cans fall over (and people around here drive like the aforementioned poo, but that’s another post). However, as we left Monday morning we were blissfully unaware that our dog’s ‘business’ was about to become such a hot topic.

Here is what we gathered happened- the trashcan that was holding the ‘business’ fell over, thereby knocking open the poo bucket and creating a mess. Now, if we had seen that this had happened we would have cleaned it up right away, but we were at work. So, it stands to reason that we WOULD have taken care of it when we had gotten home. Except we found this note on our door-

Classic, right? It’s not like we planned it…but if we had we would have definitely made sure to inconvenience this woman. She is the bane of our neighborhood, even going so far as to once calling my daughter a loud-mouth (which may be true, but as an adult you should NEVER insult someone else’s child. NEVER EVER EVER). Anyhoo, we looked at the note, took a deep breath, and reminded ourselves that we were moving in less than 5 months. She could be someone else’s problem then. Besides we are renters, her threat to call the HOA carried about as much weight as a threat to call the Mounties. Pfft, whatever. Lady, if poop-picking-up, note writing is your thing, all I can say is- YOU NEED A JOB (and possible a life, but let’s start small). But karma came through for us, because tonight we were greeted with this sight:

Yes, that is her chimney on fire. And why do chimneys catch on fire? Because they’re not cleaned, which I’m pretty sure is a violation of the HOA agreement (for this VERY REASON- because when they finally do catch on fire, they burn your house AND your neighbor’s house!) Now, everyone is fine, no one was hurt, and I certainly wouldn’t and didn’t wish for something bad to happen to her. But it’s got to happen to someone, right? And HAD Karma been taking nominations, I just might have put her name in. Not for something awful like injury or death or job/ home loss, but maybe something inconvenient. Just. like. this.

For the moment, universe- you and I can call it square.

Click here, to go to Flickr and see more photos of the action.

P.S. Let me stress, AGAIN, no one was hurt and property damage was minimal (except for the smoke)