The weeks that followed tested my patience.
Shannon turned her garden into what I can only describe as a one-woman Woodstock.
The sunbathing continued, now with an added commentary.
She invited friends over, and her parties made the windows three houses down from us shake, complete with karaoke versions of ‘I Will Survive’ at 3am.
She even started a ‘meditation drum circle’ which was more like a herd of caffeinated elephants trying to learn the Riverdance.
Despite everything, I smiled and waved.
After all, that’s the thing with people like Shannon – they’re so busy writing their own dramedy that they never get to see the plot twist.
And what a twist it was.
It was a nice Saturday afternoon.
I was baking biscuits when I heard the sirens.
I stepped out onto my veranda just in time to see a fire truck screeching by my house.
‘Ma’am,’ the fireman approached me, looking puzzled.
‘Did we get a report of a sewage leak?’
Before I could answer, Shannon appeared with a concerned citizen’s face that deserved an Oscar.
‘Yes, Officer, the toilet in there…it’s a health hazard! I’ve seen…horrible things…it’s leaking in there!
Kids, would anyone think of the kids?’
The fireman looked at the dried, decorated toilet model, then at Shannon, then back at the toilet.
His facial expression was one that clearly showed he was questioning every decision that had brought him to this point.
‘Ma’am, false emergency calls are a crime.
It’s clearly garden decor,’ he paused, probably wondering why he had to say such a phrase at his job.
‘Dry garden decor. And I’m a firefighter, not a health inspector.’
Shannon’s face faded faster than her tan rating.
‘But aesthetic pollution! Visual pollution!’
‘Ma’am, we don’t respond to aesthetic emergencies, and mischief is definitely not something we respond to.’
The firefighters left the station after that, but karma had not yet unravelled with Shannon.
Far from done.
The fire truck drama barely slowed her down.
Rather, it inspired her to reach new heights. Literally.
One hot day, I saw Shannon dragging her leopard print chair up the stairs to the roof of her garage.
And there she was, high up like some kind of sun monster, armed with a reflective sunscreen towel and, something resembling, a huge glass of margaritas.
I was in the kitchen, engulfed in mountains of dishes, wondering if the universe wanted to test my blood pressure, when chaos broke out outside.
I heard a splash of water and a squeal that sounded like a cat in a washing machine.
I ran outside to find Shannon, face down in the mud, covered from head to toe in mud, wearing her favourite petunias.
It turned out that her new rooftop sunbathing spot had found its master – her faulty sprinkler system.
Our neighbour, Mrs Peterson, dropped her garden shears.
‘Oh my God, Shannon, are you trying to repeat Baywatch?
Because I think you missed the part on the beach.
And the running part. And…well, anyway…all the parts.’
Shannon stood up, covered in mud.
Her designer swimming costume was now covered in grass stains and something that looked like a very surprised earthworm.
After this incident, Shannon became quieter than a mouse in church.
She stopped sunbathing in front of Jack’s window, and the dirty toilet on my lawn disappeared faster than a trick.
Shannon invested in a fence for her garden, and our long suburban nightmare came to an end.
‘Mum,’ Jack said the next morning at breakfast, carefully lifting his blinds, ’can we get out of witness protection now?’
I smiled and set a plate of pancakes in front of him.
‘Yes, dear. I think the show is cancelled. Forever.’
‘Thank goodness,’ he muttered and smiled. – ‘I kind of miss the toilet, though.
I was strangely starting to like him. Like a really ugly garden gnome.’
‘Don’t joke about that.
Eat your pancakes before she decides to install an entire bathroom!’ – I said and laughed with my son as we looked at the wall around Shannon’s garden.