As Janelle began her baby project and what others believed, or at least hoped, would be a seemingly hopeless quest for someone to have random sex with who didn't find her hideously huge, ugly, and old-looking, she continued to cause trouble for just about everyone around her.
She wrote in her journal about how she was enjoying having the house next door empty and how glad she was that the black “welfare bums” living there finally moved out (due to her terrorizing them, of course). Yet Janelle always found something to complain about.
“I could be enjoying the peace if it wasn't for the guy across the street spoiling it with his fucking circular saw,” she wrote.
After being annoyed by the whir of the guy sawing in his carport, Janelle decided to pay him a visit one afternoon when her husband was at work and she found that the guy was distracting her from watching TV and bitching in her journal.
She introduced herself and the guy introduced himself back as Eric.
She was “nice” to him, she also wrote in her journal, saying that she complained to him nicely even though she knew it wouldn't be enough and that she would have to resort to a more aggressive tactic to shut him up.
Eric told her he was working on a project that would be done in a day or two. But when Janelle was still hearing the saw three or four days later, she had her second talk with the guy.
“Are you almost done?” she asked.
“Had a bit of a setback but should be done soon enough. Why, still a bit loud for you?”
“Yeah,” Janelle said in a tone that suggested his question was rather idiotic.
“Well, I'm sorry about that but I'm doing my best. It's got to be done, so not a whole lot of choice,” Eric told her with a hint of annoyance in his voice and he walked off toward the back of his house with some pieces of wood he'd cut.
Without a word, Janelle walked back across the street and into her home.
“Obviously, this guy doesn't give a shit,” she went on to write, “and I have a bad feeling that the sawing isn't going to stop anytime soon.”
She was right. She listened to the annoying and distracting saw for six more days before she’d had enough and resolved to put a stop to it.
“It's always me that has to do the right thing,” she whined in a journal entry she probably never would have guessed the entire world would one day be able to see. “It's always left up to me to have to put a stop to people’s shit. They can never stop on their own. Fuck people. I fucking hate them so much! Damn this little cock to hell! It would be quiet now that the freeloaders next door are gone if it wasn't for his shit.”
Janelle slammed her hands on the table and pushed her hefty body upright. She’d had enough. Then she stormed out of her kitchen and through the garage rather than the front door. Eric saw her marching across the street with her fists clenched and could tell right away that his neighbor was pissed. But it wasn't his fault that a necessary bathroom repair was taking longer than expected. How could he know that the store wouldn’t have the parts he needed when he needed them?
Unnerved by the look on the crazy woman's face along with her silence, he stopped and pointed toward her house. “Leave,” he ordered.
Still not saying anything, Janelle yanked the cord to the saw out of the wall socket at the side of the house with one hand and grabbed the power saw with the other barely a second later. As she did this, she shot out a leg and kicked Eric in the torso, causing him to fall backward and crack his elbow on the hard cement.
Eric swore as pain shot from his elbow to his shoulder. “Get back here! Get back here with that, you crazy bitch!”
But Janelle remained silent as she walked back across the street with the saw. There was nothing to say as far as she was concerned. She was done talking. Talking didn't work. She placed the “weapon of torture” or “instrument of abuse,” as she would sometimes refer to some objects in her journal when it came to the things she would take from others as if she was simply taking annoying noisemakers away from pesky children, just inside the garage. Then she closed the garage door and stepped into the house to resume life as usual.
But she wasn't stupid. She was but she wasn't. She was at least smart enough to know that the police would be called out, and they were. At first Janelle ignored them, but eventually, she opened the door to find a young male officer by himself.
“Good afternoon,” he said as Eric grunted in pain, holding his arm. “I believe we have some kind of dispute over noisy power tools and that you have something that belongs to Mr. Christensen here?”
“Yeah, as long as he'll quit using it against me.”
“A person has a right to repair their damn home without some lunatic—" Eric began to grumble until the officer silenced him with a wave of his hand.
“You may not like the sound of it,” said the officer, “but he not only has a right to fix what needs fixing but you can't just take people's stuff simply because they annoy you with it.”
“I understand,” said Janelle.
“Where is the saw, ma’am?”
“In my garage. I'll go get it.” She closed the front door and walked through the living room and into the kitchen as if about to embark on a chore she would rather not do.
The officer took the saw and handed it back to its rightful owner. “Okay, no more trouble today. Let's get along now.”
Eric looked at Janelle then back at the officer incredulously, “Aren't you even going to arrest her?”
“I'm giving you your saw back,” Janelle said as if to say what more do you want?
The officer said, “How about you take your stuff back and you stay away from each other since there really are more important things to be arresting people for.”
“Are you kidding me?!” Eric practically shouted. “She stole my property, she assaulted me, and you're not going to do a damn thing about it?”
“Calm down, sir. No need to yell at me.”
“Well, you have this happen to you and see if you don't yell about it.”
“Sir, I can call you an ambulance if you feel you need to get that arm checked out but otherwise, I suggest you take your equipment back to your place and stay away from her.” Then turning to Janelle, he ordered her to stay away from him as well.
But Eric wasn't going to drop it that easily. “I never once came over to her place to begin with. This is the first time I'm stepping foot on this property. She's the one that's been coming to me. What is the world coming to when you can get away with stealing someone's property and then practically busting their arm?”
“I didn't steal that from you,” Janelle said remembering her mother saying a similar thing to her when she took one of her dolls away after being caught stealing a fellow classmate’s doll when she was in elementary school. “I took it from you. But now you have it back and I'm sorry about your arm. Just like you have a right to fix your stuff, I have a right to live in peace.
“Oh, shove it,” said Eric with a fierce wave of frustration as he walked back up his driveway. “Your higher-ups are going to be hearing from me, Officer.”
With one last warning to Janelle to mind her own business, the officer was off, leaving Janelle to once again not realize just how lucky she truly was.
ns216.73.216.154da2
