Mystery Solved

It's always a good day when you find out that the dirty diapers being left on your front doorstep weren't born of malicious intent.

Reeeewind. Thursday night, Y comes home from work, and on his way in asks me why I've left a stinky, poopy diaper sitting atop the 5-gallon jugs of Sparkletts water just outside our front door.

"Well I didn't, of course. Why would I? The trash chute is inches away."

Y goes, "Seriously? It wasn't you? Are you sure?"
"100 percent. Positive."
"Well then..."
"Right. Who? Who would do such a thing?"

Y and I wrack our brains. We think about who in our building has kids. We're good friends with three out of the four possibilities. Which left us with...

"Them!" We answer, simultaneously. The couple we are both thinking of is a little bit COMPLETELY STRANGE. And occasionally inappropriate. But generally benign. Certainly not the kinds of people you'd peg to toss human waste around as a cute gag. In other words, they aren't aliens. Though we have, at times, wondered.

"Would they...?" I begin.
"Would anyone...?" Y finishes.

"Ok, let's calm down. What could they, or anyone else for that matter, have against us? Where's the motive?" I wonder out loud.

"Well...I didn't go to their baby's shalom zachor," Y suggests, a little fearfully, as if the scope of it all is too much to bear. "And we both forgot about the bris."

"Ok, but isn't this kind of response a little OUT OF PROPORTION? I mean, even if they were upset at us?"

Empty of answers, Y and I try to put it out of our minds that night. After all, maybe it was a fluke. Maybe I had, temporarily, lost my mind and memory, and in so doing, put one of Ariel's diapers out there. Maybe it had fallen from the sky. That's all it was, we decide. A very bizarre, mildly-horrifying fluke.

Fine. Next morning, I'm leaving to take the boys to school, when I notice a large, empty, cardboard box said to contain the Costco generic brand bottles of drinking water. It's right on our doormat. It's trash. And it's most definitely not ours.

I call Y at work, frantic. "Ok, this is sick! THEY are sick! Talk about passive-aggressive! Who puts their garbage on their neighbor's walk just because they are miffed that they didn't participate in celebrating the birth of their baby?!"

Y says, "I don't know. I really don't get it. So obnoxious. But do you really think it's them?"

"I do," I respond. "Because I remembered a couple of more reasons why they'd hate us."

The first has to do with our vaccuum cleaner. The female of the couple in question, whom we'll call Jane Doe, had come over on the Friday before the shalom zachor, asking to borrow our vaccuum. She said theirs had broken, and she was trying to clean up before people came over to see the baby. I, obviously, obliged. But by the middle of the next week, when there was still no reason for me to believe she was ever planning to return it, I walked over there to pick it up. Jane was one the phone at the time, and thought I had come to oggle over the baby.

"Can you come back in five minutes?" She mouthed, leaning the receiver on her shoulder. "Um...sure." I mouthed back. "But could I just grab my vaccuum cleaner while I'm here?"

She asked whoever was on the phone to hold on. Then, turning to me: "Do you mind if I just use it first, and you could come get it in like twenty minutes?"

I looked around the room. It could certainly have used a good cleaning. But I thought five days had been ample time for her to get around to doing it, and for me to be left without the option. Plus, my housekeeper was there that day, and I really wanted her to do the vaccuuming, as long as I was paying for it. And, it just wasn't good form. When you borrow something major, you return it readily.

I told Jane about the housekeeper bit. She said ok, I took my Hoover Windtunnel (highly recommend it, btw), and split, feeling mildly guilty but less subtly annoyed.

I told over the story to Y. He said I was mean. Newsflash. Then I told him the only other possible motive:

When a baby is born in this community, some of the other mothers will organize a schedule to take turns cooking and dropping off meals for the family of the newborn, so that they won't have to worry about it. It's very nice to be on the receiving end of this generosity, I'm sure. I say "I'm sure" because somehow, when Ariel was born, everybody forgot. But I'm not bitter. I've cooked lots of lasagnas for lots of friends and friends-of-friends since.

Anyway, I guess my designated day to cook for the Does was the Fourth of July. When I realized the date, I didn't stress out too much planning what I'd cook. I figured there was a really good chance the family might not even be home, and that I'd think about it later. Naturally, I forgot altogether. And only remembered when I saw the cardboard box.

When I told Y about that, he said, "Well of course they hate us!"

I still didn't think the garbage dumping was deserved. I mean, come on. Crap? It's extreme, no matter how called for. I took the box, marched over the Does doorstep, and plunked it down, my heart thumping threateningly in my chest.

Sim, my brother, was there to witness the madness, and innocently suggested I just go over there and apologize for neglecting to make them a meal. He regretted that, undoubtedly, by the time I finished my OFALLTHECRAZYINSANENASTYANDMANIPULATIVEPEOPLEIHAVEEVERMET monologue. He said he wanted no part of this, anymore - that Y and I were on our own.

Ungrateful, the younger generation is. Ungrateful.

Desperate for a little backup, I called Y again, and told him what I'd done, along with my rationale: "If it is them, as we suspect, then they'll know that we know. And if it isn't them, they'll just be confused. No harm, no foul." He muttered something about how crazy is as crazy does.

Why was I so wound up? To be honest, I may talk tough, but I really don't like being disliked. I've never been comfortable knowing that someone thought badly of me, or misunderstood me, and I've always been anxious to smooth things over and get back to the comfy cuddliness of knowing that there isn't anybody out there sending negative energy my way. My grandmother always says, "You don't have to like everyone, and everyone doesn't have to like you." And everytime she says it I pretend to agree, all the while screaming "SOOOOO NOT TRUE" inside.

I'm not a conflict-avoider in any way. But I might be a pathological conflict-resolver.

Still - even I have my limits. And if the Does wanted to play crazy, I'd be playing crazy.

Because I was having a crowd for dinner on Friday night, I asked a different neighbor if she had a folding table we could borrow, to make more room for my guests. She didn't, but said she knew that the Does did. Why didn't I go ask John?

I hesitated, then explained why I couldn't. She was shocked, but agreed that if anyone in the building could be responsible, it was them.

"Plus," she added, as tears of relief pricked my eyes, "You should see their fridge. It's crammed! They've got food for months in there. They aren't starving on your account."

Thank G-d. I found a table elsewhere.

Saturday morning, Y left for shul, while I had coffee and cereal with the kids. Minutes later, having decided to change into more comfortable shoes, he reappeared.

"Margo, come here," he ordered, his face grim.
"Why?"
"Just come. Look."

Mug in hand, I joined him at our front door. There, nestled among the Sparkletts bottles, baking in the hot morning sun, was a wrapped-up, reeking diaper. With poop. Clearly. In it.

"Alright," I sighed, ready to take the higher ground. War is exhasuting.
"Enough is enough. This is rediculous - disgusting, and rediculous. You're going over there - now! We need to talk to the Does. I'm not taking anymore of this."

Miraculously, Y agreed. He was upset as I was. "Ok," he answered, his fighting voice on. "I'll go talk to them."

But before he lifted a foot, the door across the hall from us opened, and our friend, Joey's dad, greeted us, still bleary-eyed himself. "Morning, guys," he started. "Joey heard you talking and wanted to say hi to Elan..."

Y cut him off, pointing at the diaper. "This isn't yours, right?" he asked, grasping at straws. I smacked him, mortified that he'd even suggest it. "Of course not," Friend answered, confused. "Why?"

Y explained. Friend continued to appear perplexed. Then, suddenly, clarity loomed on his face.
"Unless...Joey?" He asked.
"Yeah?" said Joey, adorable in skin-tight Ninja Turtles PJs.
"When we aked you to throw Alex's diaper down the garbage chute, you did, right? You didn't get lazy and drop it over at Elan's house instead, or anything...right?"

Joey's sheepishness was transparent. "Um...may-be..." he sang, smiling.
Elan grinned back. Hilarious, bruttha!

"And the other day, too?" Friend implored, embarrassed.
"May-be," Joey repeated, his smile now ear-to-ear.

"Oh my G-d." Y and I looked at each other. "You have no idea how happy we are to hear that.

"I was ten seconds away from walking over to the Does, and accusing them of repeatedly dumping shit on our apartment, and they'd have had nothing to do with it!" Y can't believe our mistake.

"That would have been awful. AWFUL." I confirm, overwhelmed with gratitude that not only hadn't he done that, but that nobody had really been that moved to upset us in the first place.

Timing.

Anyone who doesn't believe in God, please, tell me. How do you explain Friend's timing? And then I think, God in mind, about how, in our religion, you're supposed to give people the benefit of the doubt.

And then I think, thank you, G-d, for that kick in the behind.