The Truth

Dear Officer ____ (sorry, didn't catch the name on your badge),

I just wanted to write you a note to say 'Thank you' for coming to our house to talk with us this evening.  Phil and I didn't really know what course of action to take, and you certainly cleared things up for us.

When we heard a knock on our door whilst making dinner, we weren't really expecting Stacy to be standing on the other side.  But when Phil opened the door, alas, there she was, red-eyed and bleach-blonde as ever.  She stared at us through eyes that can only be described as empty, saying "Just wanted to say thanks for keeping such a good eye on my house while I was gone.  Just wanted to let you know that I'm going to return the favor."

Points: 1) We didn't know she was gone. We did no watching. We try to ignore her. 2) Did someone break into her house or something? 3) Was that a threat?

Phil said a quick and cheery "Thank you!"  I, being more suspicious of Stacy, said "What?"  But she walked away and closed her door.  Daisy got some good barks at Stacy's evil cat, and we closed the door.  Standing in silent shock for a moment, Phil and I contemplated the meaning of Stacy's message.

Was Stacy being sincere in her attempt at friendly-neighborness?  Or did we just get served with a passive-aggressive Stacy threat?... Hmmm.   No way to be sure.  Suddenly our crazy neighbor's unpredictability may have turned from ignorable to potentially dangerous.  And since Stacy has previously accused us of aiding and abedding intruders breaking into her house, we decided to let the police decide the true meaning of Stacy's words.

Thank you, officer, for helping us understand the truth about our neighbor.  In fact, you didn't even need us to explain the situation to you.  The first thing you told us was that the SLO police department indeed knows who Stacy is.  In fact, on the way over to our house, you said you were trying to figure out where you had heard her name before.  Then you apparently received a text message from another officer who heard about the call to remind you that she's well-known.  You looked her up in the system and were reminded that Stacy is indeed under constant surveillance not only by the department, but by the anti-drug task force.

You told us that Stacy is a meth addict.  That people from the drug task force stake out her house, waiting to catch her when she's high as a kite, or carrying.  And according to your records, whenever she calls the police on one of her drug-induced paranoid rants, she usually gets arrested and goes to jail.  But despite the fact that she's addicted to methamphetamines and has been for quite some time, she's never had a violent history.

Sooo... thanks for the reassurance.  We has a suspicion that she did (lots of) drugs at some point, but it's good to know a little more about the situation.  And, you told us about a anonymous "welfare check" we could call in to have an officer come out and see what kinds of crazy things she is doing.  This may come in handy the next time she needs to bang on every wall in her house, or when she decides to more furniture around at 3 in the morning.  At least our lives (probably) aren't in jeopardy!

Anyways, thanks for the Truth.  We capitalize the Truth because it is an epic Truth, one which we will heed in our future interactions with our meth-head neighbor.

Cheers,
Maggie and Phil

Vitamin D

Stacy,

Sunblock.

Sincerely,

Philip