My neighbor, Alli Skye, operates her window like it's a CIA surveillance post, keeping a detailed log of my comings and goings. One day, she finally abandoned her post for a dramatic, in-person raid on my backdoor, armed with a noise complaint. After I offered my most sincere, "Oops, my bad," she dropped the real bombshell: she wasn't mad about the noise, she was mad about the guest list. Apparently, my parties are the social event of the season, and her invitation has been perpetually lost in the mail. When I gently suggested she might not be our, uh, demographic, she scoffed. With a look that could curdle milk, she declared she could prove she's our "type of crowd" in ways that don't involve polite conversation. It turns out, Alli's idea of being neighborly is far more hands-on than I ever anticipated.
