I just had a visit from the cops.
Last night I had a smallish fire in my backyard fireplace. It's a circle of stones that looks a lot like a miniature Stonehenge, situated in the middle of a brick patio. I had built a nice little fire with seasoned oak and was sitting by it when the wind blew up hard and carried a lot of smoke toward my neighbor. The wind held for a couple of hours.

He came bustling over and yelled, "You gotta do something about that smoke! It's all through my house! You gotta move that fireplace to the other side of the yard or sumpin' coz it's blowin' in my house!"

(Now if it were me, I would have simply closed the windows... but I guess that makes a bit too much sense.)

"Sorry, I can't move it. It's built into the ground."

"You want me to get the cops involved? We can do it that way if you want. I'll call the cops, I'll call the fire department, I'll call the homeowner's association, I'll call the district attorney."

"Do what you need to do, I guess," I replied. "It's legal."

So this morning two cops arrived on my doorstep. "Hi, umm, can we speak to you for a minute? We had a complaint about a fire last night..."

I explained what had happened and showed them the fireplace, and pointed to the stack of firewood I had been burning. The cop almost looked embarrassed by the time I was done. "Yeah, obviously nothing really happening here. You'd think he could have just come over and said something like hey, I got some smoke in my house last night."

I chuckled. "He's still mad at me for calling animal control on his dog after it bit my daughter."

"Oh, the Dalmatian that doesn't bite?"

We both laughed. He turned to his partner. "Come on, let's go talk to him." And they walked back out.

I haven't seen the Choad since.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Sat 10 Oct 2009, 16:56, 3 replies, latest was 15 years ago)

Choad! a much underused word.
well done there!
;-)
( blaireau69 , the Cumbrian Travis Bickle., Sat 10 Oct 2009, 17:57, Reply)

I hope you
posted this on QOTW
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Sat 10 Oct 2009, 18:02, Reply)

Just my luck
that that particular question closed before this happened.

I'm still waiting to see what he does next. I would imagine that the cops told him to knock it off and grow up, but one can never tell...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Sat 10 Oct 2009, 19:19, Reply)