Back in the '70s, it was 35° in the warm room. Neighbor-land lady would NOT fix heating or patch holes in walls where you could see daylight through the bricks. Couldn't keep a candle lit it was so drafty. Mrs. S ignored all my pleas and complaints.

My hubby was notorious for being 'out there'. We had the baby in a snowsuit day and night. I was going ape-sh*t nuts worried about the baby…this can't go on!

Finally, I called landlady and flipped out on the phone, threatening to call local tv news if she didn't fix the damn heat. My husband then took the phone and played the 'reasonable husband of unhinged little lady' and invited Mrs. S. to come up herself and decide if it was cold.

When she arrived, hubby was wearing a wife beater t-shirt and was sweaty from working out. He smiled wide and swept her inside the apartment against her protestations, so gently, so deftly, so swiftly, and relieved her of her coat and scarf like a damn magician. He ushered her to the table for a steaming cup of tea.

Uh oh. Yeah, you remember now…she's the reasonable one. This guy's the psycho and he's moving like a crazed Burt Lancaster dancing ballet.

She was allowed to make a graceful exit even without having to sit down for tea with my maniac in the cold. She said, “Oh, yes, you're quite right. It's much too cold. I'll have the heater replaced today.” (The heater we had had was not only inefficient, it was dangerous with open gas flame.) By 3 p.m. our new Sears heater was making life much warmer and safer.. Why didn't Mrs. S respond to my many polite requests? Hmph.

Where's the petty revenge you ask?

Come springtime, I saw Mrs. S hanging clothes out on the line. I started throwing bread crusts on the roof of her porch in passing. All of a sudden for some reason, the pigeons kept flying over Mrs. S clothes lines to get bread they had noticed appeared there from time to time,

Yeah. That’s not nice at all. Very petty of me. And no, I did not get caught.

P.S. edited for grammer.