OK, maybe summer isn't going as well as I thought...

I already told this story to several people, but I decided it was compelling enough to post here. Besides, I already wrote it as an email so, you know, cut/paste:

One of my neighbors has a grandson my son's age who comes over to play when he's in town. He and his 6-year-old sister and their mom are staying with the grandparents indefinitely right now because the parents are divorcing and husband/father is a lunatic. The boy will show up at my house at 10 in the morning and hang around all day if I let him, sometimes bringing the girl, who is young enough to make me more nervous about leaving her unsupervised than when it's just the older boys, which means I end up playing babysitter when I have plenty of other things I would rather be doing. Still, it's my son's summer too, and he loves having them here, so I deal.

A few nights ago D. (the boy) was here and my neighbor called and asked if I could keep him in the house until she came for him because his dad was outside her house raising hell and the police were coming. Lovely.

The next day both kids were in my pool with my son and suddenly this dude is at my back fence hollering for the kids, who immediately start running around crying. The mom appears behind him saying kids don't come while he's yelling at them to come here right now; meanwhile I'm between him and the kids, the kids are wailing, the mom is begging. So the bastard jumps my fence and grabs the little girl right in front of me. I picked up a towel and tried to wrap it around her to slow him down and said calmly "Let me at least get her dried off" and he got all LET GO OF MY CHILD. I tried again to just say why don't we dry her off--I mean she's dripping wet in her little swimsuit and scared to death--but he really got threatening so I let go and took the two boys in and called 911.

My son was completely freaking out--he thought the guy was going to hurt me--and D. was cowering in my living room, also dripping, of course. Dad put the girl in his car (in my driveway, the fucking bastard) and I heard the mom scream "I'll get him I'll get him!" and him screech off in the car with the girl. I had the boys somewhat calmed down and wrapped up by then (with the 911 person still on the phone) so I went and gave the phone to the weeping mother and a few minutes later Tarzan came back around the corner and let the screaming girl back out. I could see dickface in his car crying and carrying on, then mom let D. go out and talk to him briefly and I guess he left before the cops got there.

It happened so fast I didn't have much time to think about anything, but once I did I was so furious I could've killed him myself. Come in MY yard and scare the shit out of MY child? The sonofabitch. I talked to the poor mom for a long time the next morning (yesterday) and she confirmed my analysis that he's putting on a big show because he's trying to intimidate her. This has nothing to do with the kids, in whom he's shown next to no interest except when she's tried to leave him (this isn't the first time). She told me, wearily, that they're in the "please baby I just want to be a family again I'll change it'll all be better" phase right now, though she expects another round of histrionics in two weeks when he's finally served with divorce papers.

I was out front pulling weeds last night and some dude walked from down the street all "howdy neighbor" and asked if we'd be interested in feeding his dog while they go out of town this weekend. Sorry, man, but I'm having myself a birthday party this weekend and honestly? I feel like I've filled my good neighbor quota for this year.

I hate people sometimes. I really, really do.