When I politely asked my neighbor to quit sunbathing in bikinis right in front of my teenage son’s window, she struck back by dropping a grimy old toilet on my lawn with a sign: “FLUSH YOUR OPINION HERE!” I was furious, but karma delivered the payback I couldn’t have planned better myself.
I should’ve known drama was coming the day Marta moved in next door and immediately painted her house purple, then orange, then bright blue. I’ve always believed in letting people live however they want. That worked fine—until she decided to host daily bikini tanning sessions right outside my 15-year-old son’s window.
“Mom!” my son Kenny burst into the kitchen one morning, his face redder than the tomatoes I was slicing for lunch. “Can you… um… do something about what’s going on outside my window?”
I marched to his room and peeked through the glass. There was Marta, sprawled on a leopard-print lounger, wearing the tiniest bikini that could generously be called glittery string.
“Just keep your blinds closed, honey,” I said, trying to sound casual while my mind raced.
“But then I can’t even open them for air anymore!” Kenny slumped against the bed.
“This is so embarrassing. Ricky came over to study yesterday, and he walked into my room and just froze. Like, mouth open, eyes bugging out, completely stunned. His mom probably won’t let him come back!”
I sighed, shutting the blinds. “She’s been out there like that every day?”
“Every. Single. Day. Mom, I’m dying. I can’t live like this. I’m going to have to move into the basement like some mole person. Do we even have Wi-Fi down there?”
After a week of watching my teenage son practically leap around his room just to avoid catching sight of our exhibitionist neighbor, I decided to have a polite word with Marta.
I usually don’t interfere with what people do in their own yard, but Marta’s idea of “sunbathing” looked more like a one-woman show.
She’d stretch out in the skimpiest of bikinis, sometimes even topless, and it was impossible not to see her whenever you walked past Kenny’s window.
“Hey, Marta,” I called out, aiming for that middle ground between “friendly neighbor” and “concerned parent.” “Got a moment?”
She lowered her oversized sunglasses, the kind that made her look like a jeweled praying mantis. “Lydia! Need to borrow tanning oil? I just got this coconut one. Smells like a tropical getaway and poor life choices.”
“Actually, I wanted to ask about your sunbathing spot. You see, it’s right outside my son Kenny’s window, and he’s 15, and—”
“Oh. My. God.” Marta sat up, her grin spreading unnervingly wide. “Are you actually trying to tell me where I can get my vitamin D? In my own yard?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Listen, sweetie,” she cut me off, admiring her hot-pink nails like they were ancient relics. “If your kid can’t handle seeing a confident woman living her truth, then maybe you should buy better blinds. Or therapy. Or both. I know this amazing life coach who specializes in aura cleansing and interpretive dance.”
“Marta, please. I’m only asking if you could move your chair literally anywhere else in your yard. You’ve got two whole acres.”
“Hm.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully, then pulled out her phone. “Let me check my calendar. Oh, what do you know! I’m fully booked on not caring about your opinion until… forever.”
I walked back home, wondering if I had just stepped into some bizarre reality show called Neighbors Gone Wild. But Marta wasn’t finished. Not even close.
Two days later, I opened my front door to grab the paper and froze in my tracks.
Right in the middle of my neatly trimmed lawn stood a toilet. Not just any toilet. A nasty, rusting, tetanus-inviting throne, topped with a handwritten sign: “FLUSH YOUR OPINION HERE!”
There was no question whose handiwork it was.
“What do you think of my art installation?” her voice floated over from her yard. She was perched on her lounger, looking smug as a half-dressed cat.
“I call it ‘Modern Suburban Conversation.’ The local gallery already wants to feature it in their Found Objects show!” she laughed.
“Are you kidding me?” I pointed at the porcelain disaster. “This is vandalism!”
“No, honey, this is self-expression. Just like my sunbathing. But since you’re so into giving opinions about what people do on their property, I figured you deserved a proper place to dump them.”
I stood there, listening to Marta cackling like a hyena, and something clicked.
You know that moment when you realize you’re playing chess with a pigeon? The bird’s only going to knock over the pieces, strut around like it won, and leave droppings everywhere. That was Marta.
I crossed my arms and sighed. Sometimes the smartest revenge is simply sitting back and letting karma take its course.
The weeks that followed pushed my patience. Marta turned her yard into something like a solo Woodstock. The sunbathing continued, now with running commentary.
She invited friends, and her parties rattled windows three houses down, complete with karaoke at 3 a.m. She even hosted a “meditation drum circle” that sounded more like a herd of caffeinated elephants learning Riverdance.
Through it all, I smiled and waved. Because here’s the thing about people like Marta—they’re so busy staging their own drama that they never see the plot twist coming.
And when it came, oh, it was glorious.
It was a sunny Saturday. I was baking cookies when I heard sirens. I stepped onto the porch just in time to see a fire truck screech to a stop in front of my house.
“Ma’am,” a firefighter approached, looking puzzled. “We got a report about a sewage leak?”
Before I could speak, Marta appeared, her face full of fake concern worthy of an Oscar. “Yes, officer! That toilet over there… it’s dangerous! I’ve seen things leaking! Horrible things! Think of the children!”
The firefighter looked at the bone-dry decorative toilet, then at Marta, then back at the toilet. His expression screamed: Why is this my job right now?
“Ma’am, filing false emergency reports is against the law. This is obviously just a lawn ornament.” He paused, probably questioning why he had to utter the phrase ‘lawn ornament’.
“A dry lawn ornament. And I’m a firefighter, not a health inspector.”
Marta’s face fell faster than sunscreen washing off in the pool. “But… the visual pollution! The eyesore!”
“Ma’am, we don’t respond to style emergencies. And pranks definitely aren’t our department.”
With that, the firefighters left. But karma wasn’t done with Marta yet. Not even close.
The fire truck drama barely slowed her down. If anything, it seemed to encourage her to get even bolder.
One scorching afternoon, I spotted Marta dragging her leopard-print lounger up a ladder to the roof of her garage. And there she was, perched high like some sort of sunbathing gargoyle, armed with a reflective tanning sheet and what looked like a gallon-sized margarita.
I was elbow-deep in dishwater, wondering if the universe was testing my patience, when chaos broke loose outside.
I heard a splash and a screech that sounded like a cat trapped in a washing machine. I rushed out to find Marta face-first in her flowerbed, soaked in mud from head to toe.
Turned out her new rooftop tanning spot had been no match for her malfunctioning sprinkler system.
Our neighbor, Mrs. Green, dropped her gardening shears. “Good heavens! Marta, are you trying to reenact Baywatch? Because you missed the beach. And the running. And, well… basically every part.”
Marta scrambled up, covered in mud, grass stains, and even a very bewildered earthworm.
After that incident, Marta went quiet as a church mouse. She stopped sunbathing in front of Kenny’s window, and the disgusting toilet on my lawn disappeared as if by magic.
She built a tall privacy fence around her backyard, and our suburban nightmare was finally over.
“Mom,” Kenny said at breakfast the next morning, cautiously raising his blinds, “is it safe to come out of witness protection now?”
I smiled, sliding him a plate of pancakes. “Yeah, honey. Looks like the show’s been canceled. Permanently.”
“Thank God,” he muttered, then grinned. “Though… I kinda miss the toilet. It was starting to grow on me. Like a really ugly garden gnome.”
“Don’t even joke about that. Eat your pancakes before she decides to put in a whole bathroom set out there!” I said, laughing with my son as we glanced at the fence around Marta’s yard.
