I suggest you attend, though.
Frankly, the decision is already made.
She turned to leave.
Brandon, following her, still filming me, standing there in my swim trunks, dripping water on my own patio.
Oh, and one more thing, Karen called over her shoulder.
That truck of yours, the one you park in your driveway, I’m having it towed tomorrow.
Commercial vehicles are strictly prohibited, and I’ve been far too lenient with you already.
They walked away, Brandon’s laughter echoing back to me.
I stood there watching them go, watching my neighbors quickly disappear back into their houses, not wanting to be seen associating with Karen’s latest target.
I looked down at my phone, sitting safely in a waterproof case on my patio table.
Its recording light was still blinking.
I’d captured everything.
Consequences, I muttered to myself, a smile slowly spreading across my face.
Yeah, Karen, let’s talk about consequences.
That evening after Karen and Brandon left, something unexpected happened.
When I went back into the kitchen after the confrontation, my shirt was still damp against my shoulders.
I replayed the beginning of the pool recording once and stopped when I heard Brandon order me out of my own water.
His confidence sounded different through the speakers because I was no longer looking at his expensive shoes or his mother’s furious expression.
I could hear how little either of them had bothered to ask.
Before that day, I had considered their behavior a series of ugly but ordinary neighborhood quarrels.
Now they had openly asserted a false property claim and threatened to use a private association to enforce it.
I called the title company that handled my purchase and requested another certified copy of the boundary survey.
The clerk recognized the address and said the file was uncomplicated.
She offered to email the scanned plan and mail the certified copy the following business day.
I thanked her and asked whether any easements or shared facilities appeared in the record.
She read through the entry and confirmed that there were none affecting the pool.
I wrote the time and her name in my notebook.
Next I checked my homeowner’s insurance policy because Karen had threatened to tow the truck from my driveway.
The policy described the garage and driveway as part of the insured premises.
That was not the same thing as determining whether an HOA could regulate vehicles, but it ruled out Karen’s invented claim that my driveway was common land.
