You'd think I have a life outside of worrying about the felon next door. Oh, wait! I do have a life. This tale wasn't urgent. Not even sure it's Effie-related, but it's awfully suspicious, so I'm recording it herein.
Friday, December 2, 2011, I returned home in my car around 10:30 PM. (Went to the hockey game, of course!) No big, ugly brown Effie-van, and Sweetie had taken his (stress-inducing) truck to visit relatives for a couple of days. So, with the whole space in front of the duplex open to me, I gave it my best guess where the middle was, so Sweetie could park in front of me (he was coming home that night) and Effie could lug her van in back of me. (We don't like her parking in the middle because she's worse at depth perception than I am.)
As I was gathering my things to go inside the house, the neighbor across the street, who knows I love four-footed friends, came over to introduce me to their new puppy. We had a nice greeting, and I distinctly remember folding in my driver's side rearview mirror. It's a habit, but I actually noticed I was doing it as the neighbor, "Lila" (so sweet!) and I said our goodnights.
Sweetie arrived long after I'd gone to sleep, so it was quite dark when he arrived -- and he was tired, too. This matters...
Next morning, we emerged to run some errands. My car had more petrol than his truck had at that point, so we were using mine. He was the one who noticed that my driver's side mirror was hyperextended (best word I can find to describe it) completely the other way from "folded-in." There was no evidence that anyone had hit the car: someone had to have done it by hand in an (angry?) attempt to break off the mirror. (Way to go, Nissan! The mirrors just don't break off!) As I was coming round the front to inspect for myself, I saw that the lower-left corner of my license plate was curled. That had to have been done by hand, too, or maybe the miscreant had a pair of pliers.
These were two distinct acts of (attempted) vandalism, to be certain. Definitely childish...but Effie's van hadn't been anywhere around since I last saw it Friday morning when I took my car. But just because the van isn't visible, we don't believe for an instant she's not home. Not always, anyway.
I did call the Landlady to ask if she'd heard from Effie recently. She hadn't. If Effie had called and complained (again) about the (public) parking situation, I could have pinned these acts of anger on her. But maybe she didn't do it. Just in case, though, I have recorded the story.
Oh, and I just restored the mirror to its proper position and uncurled the plate by hand. Weird, eh!
