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by Kristy Westphal

Born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, I attended the University of Arizona where I received a BSBA in Finance. I obtained my MBA from Arizona State University. Currently, my primary line of work is in Information Security, for which I write many technical articles to help keep up my skills. Up until last Spring, I had a monthly column for UnixReview.com and have written several articles for SysAdmin magazine as well as SecurityFocus.com.  My true passion; however, lies in writing poetry and fiction.  

Stan Irving liked to carefully orchestrate the garbage cans at the sidewalk on trash day in his condominium complex.  Stan spent many hours studying the roll-out cans and how the garbage truck picked them up.  He figured that he understood the perfect location for each can so that the garbage truck arm could swing down and pick up the can, emptying it with the precision of a delicate dance recital.  On trash day, Stan would get up extra early to position all the cans just-so, enabling the city to do its job as efficiently as possible.  Stan felt like he did a service for his neighborhood every week.  The neighbors just shook their heads and tried to ignore him.

However, if you hadn’t put your can out the night before, Stan left a note on your front door asking you to comply with the homeowner’s association (aka HOA) rules.  Stan memorized the rules, so if he found any other abnormalities along the way, he’d leave a note about that too.  If you did the same violation multiple times, Stan would write a note to the HOA.  The HOA inevitably fined you for the violation, usually with great pleasure.  Stan actually helped it cut down on the patrolling it had to do because Stan pretty much roamed the streets a couple of time each day.  Stan probably knew the rules better than the association did.

For example, if Stan noticed that you had a barbeque grill on your balcony, he kindly gave you one warning that you really needed to get rid of the against-the-rules grill or he’d report you.  If he saw that you had parked a car in your driveway between 1 and 5 a.m., he’d do the same.  Or if he observed that you parked your car on the street at any time (a major no-no), he’d put a little Stan ticket under your windshield wiper.  Really, the neighbors didn’t like Stan at all.

But Stan truly didn’t mean to annoy anyone; he just thought that he might make more friends in condo-land if he reached out to them.  Pointing out every little violation of the CC&Rs (Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions) seemed like the best way to do this.  After all, Stan, a widower and ex-Navy officer, didn’t have a lot of social skills, so meeting people became a real chore for him.  Acting as the junior HOA military police around the neighborhood made him feel wanted and useful.

Once and a while, if you watched closely, Stan showed true signs of being human.  Like the day that one of the neighbor kid’s got a flat tire on the way to school.  Stan spotted little Leo Hewitt and his mom near the gates of the complex.  Leo and his mom went to school like this pretty much every day: Leo rode his little moto-cross bike and mom walked behind him to make sure he made the entire trip to school.  At the age of 8, Leo didn’t quite qualify yet to ride to school on his own.

When Stan happened upon them on his rounds, Leo’s mom tried to console him as he cried inconsolably.  Stan stepped in immediately.

“Morning, Mrs. Hewitt.  Problem?”

Joy Hewitt looked up at Stan with terror in her eyes.  She wondered mentally if this could possibly be an HOA violation, but then she snapped out of her silly daze.

“Stan!  Hi.  Leo here has a flat tire…”

“Oh!  Well, allow me!” he replied, picking up the bike.  “I have a tire repair kit in my garage.  I can get you back up and running in no time, kiddo!”

Leo stopped sobbing and blinked at Stan.  Joy wondered if even Leo knew how weird this offer of help seemed right now, even if welcome.  Stan delivered, though, and fixed up Leo’s tire in a flash and sent him on his way.  Joy half smiled in wonder at the incident and never spoke of it to anyone for fear they thought her mad.

One day, Archie Banks and his wife Elba decided that they’d had enough.  Archie and Elba lived directly across from Stan in the complex.  Through their living room window, they could see right into Stan’s condo.   On a typical day, Stan would station himself there and watch his neighbors come and go all day.  Archie and Elba received a few of Stan’s notes themselves; even got fined once because they forgot to move a guest’s car out of the driveway overnight.  Archie felt furious when he got the $10 invoice in the mail.  He refused to wave at Stan anymore when he saw him on the street.  Stan sensed some hostility from Archie, but never understood why.  After all, Stan helped to keep the property values high because of all the work that he did.  Or so Stan thought anyway.

When Archie finally blew his top that day, Elba felt a little scared of him.  She had never seen Archie so angry.  When he went out to get the paper that morning, he found a little love note from his buddy Stan: “This is the third time you haven’t put your can out the night before.  Must report you to the HOA.  –Stan Irving.”  Like he had given them a special exception because he didn’t report him after the first time.  And because Stan had just reported the Banks for parking their car on the street, Archie lost his cool.  After all, he had parked his car on the street for thirty minutes while he cleaned out his garage.  Not like he left the car there all day or anything.

So that morning, Archie came in from the driveway, face as red as Santa’s suit, smoke nearly coming out of his ears, grabbed his baseball bat and propped it by the front door.  He then positioned himself just out of sight in the living room window, not watching the street below, but watching Stan across the way.  Stan typically went out for a few hours in the late morning, either to run errands or to the gym.  But, he tried to make sure that he got back in the afternoon so that he could roam the streets and look for violations.  Archie knew this, so he bided his time accordingly.

Almost on cue, the garbage truck began its journey through the winding streets of the complex at about 9 a.m.  Stan enjoyed watching his production execute in perfect harmony.  As soon as the truck had passed his building, he grabbed his gym bag and headed over to the fitness room in the complex. 

Now out of view from Stan, Archie made his own move.  Elba watched as he went to the front door (still in his bathrobe), grabbed the bat and headed outside.  She thought she’d better stay inside just in case the situation took a turn for the worst, so she took Archie’s prior position and watched him from the window. 

Archie took the bat and attempted to take aim at one of the cans across the street.  He took a couple of practice swings, but had second thoughts and simply pulled the can over on the ground, leaving the can on its back with the lid open.  He smiled with great pride at the sudden disarray this one can caused on a street that still looked precisely arranged by Stan.  Elba watched as an evil look overcame Archie’s face, grin included, while he walked to the next can and tipped it gently over sideways. 

Without any witnesses, save for Elba, Archie merrily continued to tip and pull over cans up one side of the street and down the other until he had made a full circle.  The street now looked as if a windstorm had come through and knocked over everything in its path.  Or, as in this case, just the cans.  Archie, satisfied with his work, went back inside with the bat resting over his shoulder.  Elba stood in the living room with her arms crossed, glaring at him.  Then she started to laugh.

“Stan is going to have a coronary when he sees this!”

“Why yes,” Archie grinned.  “I think he just might.”

===

Several hours went by.  Archie and Elba took turns standing guard at the window so they knew when Stan returned home.  Elba spotted him first.  She tried not to appear in the window as she jumped up and down yelling for Archie.  When Archie had joined her, Stan stood in his driveway, apparently having dropped his gym bag by his feet, with his jaw dropped so low Elba thought she could see his tonsils.  By now, other neighbors also had emerged from their homes, trying to figure out which can belonged to them and needing to move others out of their driveways as they came home for lunch.

Stan couldn’t take the mess and began to pick up the cans, arranging them neatly back in their original spots as closely as he could manage.  By the time he had gone up and down the street, somehow, he ended up with two in his driveway.  He looked up and down the street but couldn’t figure out who the extra can belonged to.

“Oh my God, Arch.  He is so puzzled about that extra can!” Elba giggled.

“That look on his face is priceless!”

“I’d go get the camera but he might see me.”

“Nah, he might break the camera!  We just need to wait to see what he does.  If he leaves the can in the driveway, we have to call the HOA before he does.  That way they will have to fine him!”

Elba gasped, then giggled some more.  “You think they’ll do that?”

“Well, they may give him a warning, but even then, the groundwork has now been laid.”

Stan did end up reporting the extra can to the HOA.  Even though the mere presence of the extra can made him twitch, he left it outside for a few days hoping that someone would claim it.  But this time, Stan had not reported the can first.  Indeed, Archie called to report it Monday night.  Then Elba called the next day when the can still sat in Stan’s driveway.  The war had begun.

===

Thursday rolled around, which meant recycle day.  In the city of Phoenix, one day a week your trash would get picked up.  Another day, your recyclable material would get picked up.  Different cans, same type of routine for Stan.

Now extra paranoid, Stan kept a close eye on the cans that day.  Archie had to get creative.  Instead of waiting until Stan completed his loop around the neighborhood, Archie and Elba followed a block or two behind Stan, skewing the carefully placed cans just-so: enough so that the truck could still get the cans, but just enough that Stan would notice.

Quietly and swiftly, Archie and Elba adjusted random cans, ever vigilant to watch whether Stan would turn around and find them.  Successful in their mission, Archie and Elba snuck back to their condo before Stan returned.  They didn’t quite make a clean escape, as they found themselves confronted by Veronica Johnson and Ted Tipton, occupants of the building next door.

“So!  Are you responsible for Monday’s little episode?” Veronica interrogated, arms crossed in her fuchsia-colored silk bathrobe.

Archie and Elba looked around nervously.  First, they looked for anyone else who might eavesdrop and second for Stan who might come around the corner at any moment.

“Uh….yes, that was me,” Archie confessed with his head down.

“That, my friend, was brilliant!” remarked Ted.  “That busybody had it coming!  Why, he reported me for not cleaning up my dog poop the other day.  I mean, I forgot the bag and came back for it later, and they still fined me!”

Archie smiled.  He just found additional soldiers for his war.

“So, you guys want in?   We could use the help.”

“You bet we do!” Veronica replied with an evil grin on her face.

“All right then.  Coffee at our place, Sunday morning.  We’ll strategize then.”

No sooner had he said ‘then’ when Stan approached the group.

“Oh my God!  Do you SEE this?  Someone has moved the cans!”

The group looked up and down the street with puzzled looks. 

“I’m sorry, Stan, but what are you talking about?” Elba asked.

“Did you see anything?  I think we have vandals among us!” Stan said excitedly.

Veronica chimed in. 

“Gee, Stan, we didn’t see a thing.  We were all just chatting when you came up.  We hadn’t even noticed.”

Stan seemed a little hurt by her last comment, but thanked them and hurried about straightening the cans for the second time.  The gang of four tried not to laugh.  Instead, they disbursed shaking their heads and scheming for the meeting on Sunday.

===

The war continued for several weeks, mostly consisting of the gang of four sneaking around Stan’s schedule and randomly displacing garbage cans.  The chaos reached the point where Stan posted flyers everywhere, announcing a meeting of the neighbors for the purpose of organizing against the garbage can culprits.  No one came.  Stan grew more frustrated.

The number of HOA citations lowered significantly those two weeks, which became a wonderful, unexpected side effect for the rest of the neighborhood.  So much so that HOA officials nearly called Stan to make sure that he felt all right.  But they never did.  According to the many reports the HOA received, Stan had lost his mind.

One Monday, several weeks into the war, Stan came home with the garbage cans no longer in perfect harmony, as he expected.  But this time, he came armed.

The gang of four used a now standard trick: switch cans from driveway to driveway.  While all the rolling cans looked the same at first blush, they were not in fact all the same.  Stan knew this.  Some weighed heavier than others, some looked darker in color, and some had spots.  But even though they had serial numbers assigned the task of understanding whose belonged to whom became daunting.

So Stan thought he had the solution.  He went to the home repair store and bought several cans of sky blue spray paint.  Sky blue seemed a very palatable color.  Stan unloaded the cans from his car, grabbed his tool belt from his tool shelf, loaded himself up with several cans, and approached the can that currently lay in his driveway.   He picked it up, sprayed his house number on it as neatly as he could and admired his handy work.

“This’ll fix ‘em.”

He proceeded to pick up the nearby cans and sprayed a number on them as well.  Archie watched all this from his window, chuckling as he dialed the number to the HOA.

===

Stan received an official cease and desist order from the HOA later that week in the mail.  The HOA informed him that they wouldn’t press charges for defacing city property, but would he please quit reporting all of his neighbors in the meantime.  Stan had never felt more rejected in his life.  He had only tried to help…help fight the wicked garbage can vandals.  Oddly enough, the garbage and recycle cans stopped moving soon after Stan quit handing out reprimands.

Stan continued his walks around the neighborhood, but now he walked simply for his own exercise and quit trying to take in all of the CC&R violations.  This type of walk bored him, but he did it anyway.  What else did he have to do?

As he walked one day, he heard a new noise.  Almost like a little whimper, a cry, a little yelp.  Stan looked around in the carefully manicured landscaping and spotted something that looked like a picnic basket.  The basket sat behind a bush and jostled a little from side to side.  The whimpers definitely emanated from this source.  Stan approached slowly, not knowing what he might find there.  The basket, full of a litter of new-born sheltie puppies, proved no threat to him at all.  Instead, Stan melted on the spot and knelt down to greet the little guys.  Who on earth could leave such a bunch of wonderful furry creatures all alone like this?  Stan jumped on the case.

He picked up the basket by the handle and began to make his way back to his condo.  He wondered if they had eaten recently.  Never having had a pet of his own, Stan hadn’t a clue what to feed them.  Maybe Archie and Elba knew what to do.  Stan went over to their condo instead and knocked on their door.  Luckily, Elba answered, albeit suspiciously.

“Hi, Elba, sorry to bother you,” he began.  Elba went from suspicious to wide-eyed.  Stan never talked like that.  He held the noisy basket up so she could see its contents.

“I found these guys over in the bushes, and I thought they might be hungry.  Any idea what to feed puppies?”

Elba could hardly believe her ears.  By now, Archie had joined her, equally suspicious.

“What do you mean ‘what do you feed puppies?’  You never had a dog before?” Archie shot at him.  He could sense a change in Stan too, like a type of concerned sincerity he had never noticed before.

“Um, no.  When Mary was still alive, she’d take care of any animals we had.  I never did.”

Archie and Elba stared at him for a moment, then at the puppies.  They sensed a sadness in Stan that he never revealed before.  Stan really meant what he said, and had compassion in there somewhere.  Miracles truly did happen.

“Well, they probably need some kind of milk.  They look like they’re newborns.  Why don’t you check it out on the Internet?  I bet they have something you can use,” Elba offered.  Stan shook his head. 

“I actually don’t have the Internet.  Never could figure that computer crap out,” he admitted.

Archie hesitated, but then Elba piped up.  “Well, we have DSL.  Why don’t you come in and we’ll look it up for you.”

Stan smiled slightly as he entered Archie and Elba’s condo.  He had never gone into anyone else’s unit here.  He had only viewed them from the outside, until now. 

“Why don’t you set these guys down in the kitchen and we’ll go into the office,” Archie instructed.  Elba found that she didn’t want to leave the litter alone, so she checked them out while the guys went into the office and researched what to do.  They soon discovered that they needed to keep them warm, clean, and they needed to eat a special puppy baby formula. 

“Sounds like I am off to the pet store!” Stan announced.

“Well, uh, you can leave them here while you do that,” Elba offered.  “I wouldn’t mind giving them a little bath.” 

Archie shot her a look, but then when he looked at the cute little things, he relented. 

“You sure?” Stan confirmed.

“Yes, yes, we’re sure.  Off to the pet store with you!  There is one just over on Magnolia,” Archie instructed again.

“Right!  OK, back in a flash.”

And with that, Stan started a new campaign in the neighborhood.  This time his campaign had nothing to do with reporting every single violation or keeping the garbage cans straight.  This time, Stan sought help for his new found furry friends.  He spent several weeks nursing them and washing them, and then they started to eat solid food.  When he started to walk them (or perhaps they walked him), Archie and Elba came out to chat with him and check on their progress.  Ted and Veronica saw this and felt OK about joining them to find out why on earth they actually spoke to Stan. 

More neighbors saw this and began to talk to Stan, wave to him, and ask about the puppies.  What did he call them?  Would he keep them all?  He should try to adopt out some of them- after all, what would he really do with seven full grown shelties in his tiny condo?

After about two months and a lot of growth of the puppies, Stan started asking the neighbors he met on his walks if they knew anyone interested in adopting, gave out his phone number, interviewed the potential adopters and managed to make some friends along the way.  He kept those friends when he saw them on walks with the two shelties he kept, aptly naming them Hunter and Scout.  Not that Stan hunted, but these two like to check everything out.

Archie and Elba felt like he should have named them Angel and Savior.  Those little guys, and their brothers and sisters, saved the entire neighborhood from ever having any more Garbage Can Wars.  Ever, again. 

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