177. Neighbours (5 and hopefully last)

My husband says no, we are not leaving tonight. He just tells me to ignore it all. As long as I promise I was not me who set the bins on fire.

When he comes home in the evening I ask him to take a good look at the damage. Does he not think it weird that the damage is only on the neighbours' wall? And that it seems to stop right on the exact line marking the separation between the two houses?

'Well, as you know, we have a ghost in this house.'

Oh. My. God. How could I have forgotten? Of course! That's it. That makes sense.

He looks at me as if I am an amnesic. I look at him as if he is awakened. 

I am so happy. I have a - perfectly reasonable - explanation for this surprising occurrence. Yet I cannot really give this kind of explanation to the neighbours as they would add 'fit for the local loony bin' on the above list.

Instead I do what boring people do in this day and age and get hold of my phone. I re-read the original message. 

'Your bins have caught fire and have caused damage to the pavement etc ...'

Time to reply.

Dear neighbour, I am very sorry about the bins spontaneously catching fire on the pavement last night and causing damage to your wall and most surprisingly none whatsoever to ours. I have contacted both the police and the mairie. I must say that neither put a lot of effort into this unfortunate event. They suggest you file a complaint so they can get access to the videos from the camera on the corner of our street.

I read over it once and press send.    

Before getting on with the rest of my wonderfully exciting day I feel I have to go and check a few things on Google such as what to do if your neighbour files a complaint about you and your bins. That type of thing. The Google Doodle of the day looks interesting and I take a close look. A little character darting around ... picking up bins! Today is Monsieur Poubelle's birthday! 🤣