Most of the time it stayed in the garage.
Sometimes I would pull it partly into the driveway while cleaning it, loading gear, or working on something.
Every single time it was visible for more than five minutes, it was like she had some private alarm system.
She would suddenly appear and say some version of, “That needs to be moved immediately.”
And I would say some version of, “No, it doesn’t.”
Once, she stood at the edge of my driveway taking pictures with her phone like she was documenting a crime scene.
I asked, “Do you need me to move so you can get a better angle?”
She lowered the phone.
“You think this is funny?”
“A little.”
That really got to her.
Not long after that, I met her son.
He was old enough to know better and young enough to still carry himself like consequences were something other people got.
Lowered truck.
Gym tank top.
Backward hat.
Fake relaxed attitude.
The kind of guy who says “bro” during arguments because he thinks it makes him sound above everything.
He wandered over one afternoon while I was pressure-washing part of the driveway and stood there staring at the ATV like he was browsing a showroom.
“That yours?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He nodded toward it.
“Nice. My mom hates that thing.”
“I know.”
He laughed.
“She said it makes your place look trashy.”
I shut off the pressure washer and looked at him.
“Then she should stop staring at my garage.”
He gave this little smirk like he thought we were having playful guy talk.
“I’m just saying, if you kept it out back, there wouldn’t be all this drama.”
“If your mom minded her own business, there wouldn’t be all this drama either.”
The smirk faded a little.
He looked back at the ATV.
“She runs the neighborhood.”
“Good for her,” I said. “But she doesn’t run this property.”
He shrugged, but it was that fake shrug people do when they are irritated and trying to hide it.
Looking back, he had the same reaction she always had when somebody told her no:
First disbelief.
Then annoyance.
Then the stubborn refusal to accept that the answer was not going to change.
A few days later, I came home and found another one of her homemade violation notices taped to my garage.
This one claimed that I had seventy-two hours to get the ATV out of sight or she would move forward with towing.
That was the first time her little paper campaign crossed from ridiculous into something I actually took seriously.
I walked straight over to her house with the notice in my hand.
She was outside with two other women doing that slow neighborhood walk where people seem more concerned with being seen exercising than actually exercising.
I held up the paper.
“Did you put this on my garage?”
She did not even deny it.
“It was posted as a courtesy.”
“You don’t get to threaten towing on property you don’t control.”