We agreed to clean her house, but my neighbor refused to give me the $250 because I gave her a fair lesson.
It’s said that neighbors can become allies or enemies, but I never thought mine would happen so quickly. What had begun as a straightforward favor developed into a sour conflict and a plot twist that left us both stunned. I never imagined that six years after my husband, Silas, left our lives, I would be standing in my kitchen, cleaning the same countertop for the third time, and wondering how I got to be this person. I’m Prudence, a 48-year-old mother of two who works remotely for a contact center and is currently struggling to make ends meet. Not everything in life went as planned. I used to dream with Silas about the kind of life we wanted to lead. But those dreams broke somewhere along the way, and I was left to pick up the pieces by myself.
She didn’t have time to tidy up her mess of a place. If I could assist her, she would pay me. I paused and looked at the time. Though I had a shift starting soon, the thought of making some additional money was alluring. It’s a blessing that we have it. We had a quick discussion and settled on $250, then I went to work. There were half-eaten meals, empty bottles, and trash all throughout Emery’s house, which was a complete mess. I spent two full days cleaning, sweeping, and removing trash.
My hands were rough and my back hurt by the time I was done, but I kept thinking of the $250 Emery had promised. We could really use that money.I went to retrieve Emery when he eventually came back. When I mentioned the money, she blinked at me, not understanding. “Disbursement? What payment, she enquired. When she said there was no agreement, my heart fell. She told me she didn’t have time for this and brushed me off before heading to work. I was stunned and enraged as I stood there. I stewed about her treachery for the remainder of the day. After all my hard work, she had the audacity to act as if our arrangement never happened.
I was not going to let her off the hook. I had to think carefully about what to do next. I was pacing my living room when an idea dawned on me. It was a dangerous notion, but I believed it was important. I found myself at the neighborhood trash dump later that day, packing bags of trash into my car. It was a time for desperate measures. I drove back, rehearsing our conversation over and over in my mind, defending my strategy every mile. The street was empty when I got to her house. Heart thumping, I dragged the trash bags to the front door. Working fast, I discovered that Emery had neglected to return her house key to me.
After a moment of hesitation, I recalled how she had rejected me. I opened her door, went inside, and proceeded to carefully rip open the trash bags, spilling the contents all over her immaculate house. Dirty diapers, rotten food, and outdated newspapers were all mingled together in one ugly pile. Scrambling out of her broken home, I felt guilty and satisfied at the same time. I heard a loud, angry knocking on my front door that evening as I was putting Connie to bed. I opened it without even realizing it was Emery.
She let out a scream and insisted on knowing what I had done to her home. I reminded her that, in her opinion, I never had the key, and I politely denied everything. I knew she had no evidence, yet she still threatened to call the police. Having lost, she bounded off. I felt an odd mixture of sadness and relief as I shut the door. Even though I knew I had gone too far, at that particular moment it seemed right. You have to put yourself first sometimes, even if it means getting your hands filthy. After this, I didn’t think Emery would ask for any more favors.
