Damned if you do, damned if you don't

Two years ago, the water pipe in our front yard sprang a leak. Like any DIY homeowner, I dug up the faulty pipe and connected the appropriate length of PVC to it. I'm up to my elbows in water and mud when a car approaches. It was the friendly city ordinance people. She wrote me a ticket for my vehicle parked in my driveway. Having my car block the side walk was against the rules of the ever-so-helpful neighbourhood ass-ociation. Try to imagine that scene. I've got an unwanted fountain in my front yard surrounded by a water filled hole. A decent layer of mud coating me, including my arms. And there is the meter maid fairy writing me a ticket.
Now if I started to cuss her out she'd tune me out while she put the ticket on my truck. My temper is something I have to keep in check constantly, and although this would be a perfectly acceptable time to vent my anger, I instead attacked her psyche with sarcasm and mental warfare. Starting with 'You have got to be kidding me.' and working my way up to 'Why are you here? Are the real crooks too hard to catch? I work for a living, you ought to try it sometime.'
Not nice things to say, but I was pissed at someone who's nit picking when I'm on my knees getting filthy.
Bottom line: If I'm paying the fine, I should get to chew the lady out. Getting singled out and punished like that, I'm gonna get my ten dollars worth. 
To avoid incidents in the future, I now park in the street. This morning I noticed broken plastic near my truck. My front light was smashed in. No apparent damage to the body, just the light. Now I'll have to get that fixed before the month is out, I'd never pass inspection now. No matter where I park, eventually something bad happens. I need to talk to my neighbours. I'll be nice, but the bigger chunks of my headlight are spread out near their driveway.

Headlight works...

Turn signal doesn't

Well now that I look at it, that dent above the light is new. Seems I need to talk to someone. One more thing I have to deal with. Once, just once, I'd like somebody to own up to the hit and run accidents.
My mailbox gets hit on average once a year. I wake up one morning to bricks scattered across my front yard. I've called the police and filed reports.
Currently I'm on mailbox 4.0. 
The first time, they dragged my trash can that had been left out the night before. Never did find it. The next time the police found a hubcab belonging to a Toyota.
The next rebuild I did involved a metal pole in cement, lots of dirt and gravel. My logic being they take my mailbox, I'm taking their axle. I figured they forfeited their breathing privileges when they jumped the curve. That sounds callous, but the cops couldn't do anything. My neighbourhood ass-ociation is only good for shaking their heads and saying, 'you got hit again?'
As always, Carol got me around to her way of thinking. I took out the pipe and gravel and rebuilt it so it was hollow. Good thing too, because a few months later some dude smashes into it with his Harley. A friend was staying with us and saw the whole thing out the kitchen window. So stunned was this fellow he came up and rang our doorbell to apologize. (I'll give him points for that.) His mistake was trying to leave when my friend called the cops. My friend happened to be a black belt and prevented him from taking off before the cops got here. I so bought him lunch for that.
Last neighbourhood ass-ociation meeting I went to I told them point blank: Let me turn my mail box into an asshole trap. It will only have to work once.
I've said it before: It's time to thin the herd. Let stupidity be lethal.