Susan spotted a visitor first on our back wall, then in our pond. We both took up our own vantage points and watched as it stalked around our pond looking for a meal. That is, until our next visitors arrived.

Three kids rode by on an atv, passing over our NID easment and into the neighbors yard. The heron flew away, and the peace of the very pleasant evening was broken. We decided that this wasn't something we wanted, so we waited a little while to see if they would come back. We decided to close the gate across the NID easment path to indicate our preference with respect to such visitors. As we were headed back to the house, we heard them coming back. I headed up to have a little friendly chat with them.

When I got to the gate, the atv was back, but there was an adult male this time with two little boys. I walked over to have my chat, waving first and trying to broadcast cheerful friendliness. We all just wanna get along, right? Wrong. Not Brandon, as the mother of this asshole decided to name him. But wait, I get ahead of myself.

I said, "Hi!" (imagine cheerfulness here) "I sure would appreciate it if you wouldn't ride through here." Nice tone, I thought, friendly. He said, "Oh, you would, huh?" Not a good sign. I took up position on my side of the gate, he walked up and put his hands on the top of the gate, as if to open it up. I explained, still politely, I thought, that we didn't mind the occasional horse or people traffic, but that I thought the motor traffic wasn't what we wanted. "Why?" he asked. I said that it just wasn't what we wanted here. "Why?" He said again. Hmm, still not getting through here. I realized that what I had here was a prime example of Redneckus Idiotus, and I would have to try to use smaller words and put my foot on the gate, too, just to get he message across.

He explained that the NID easment was public property, and he had the right to pass through our land across it. I have to admit that I wasn't sure what the legal situation was about the easement. I was sure, however, that I didn't want this joker ripping it up and disturbing our heron guests. I agreed that I didn't know exactly what the legality of my request was. He said that I sure ought to find out before I come up agressively. He said, "You just don't do that," referring to my request for him to turn his shitbucket around and go home.

He shook the fence and said, "This fucking shit is illegal, right here. This is fucking public property." I explained that there were many gates across NID easments, we weren't the only ones with this idea. He said, "Well, I'm just going to ride on through here," referring to our land, "and you can take it up with my friend," pointing up the hill to our neighor. I repeated my request, "I'd just as soon you didn't do that." "Oh, you do, do you?" Crap, right back where we started.

I have to stop and explain that I found this silly man absolutely ridiculous. He actually wanted to throw down over riding his silly ass little crotch rocket. I swear, men are what's wrong with this world. Back to the story.

We discussed, again, the finer points of real estate law. I conceded that I wasn't making my request from a firm foundation of legal research. I asked him to just take it as a personal request. We discussed where I was from, how long I had been here, and the fact that he was a better welder than the guy we bought the house from. OK, now the signal was coming in pretty clearly. Did I mention he was shorter than I was? I thought that he was next going to drop his pants to show me how exceptionally large his wang was. Luckily, I was spared the trauma.

I pointed out, "It doesn't have to be like this." He missed the point, "That's right, you don't want it to be like this." Not sure how this would play out, if it went down. The problem was that I wasn't particularly mad at this silly guy, I thought he was comically pitiful. I said, "That's ridiculous, that's not what's going to happen here." Man, it was just like back on the playground. What a tool.

He repeated his assertion that my understanding of the law was clouded. I stuck with my request. Eventually he turned around and went back the way he came (yay!). No wonder Rough and Ready seceeded from the union. They might well have been too stupid to remember to maintain their subscription.

So, to wrap this up, I went back home and we looked at the title insurance report (ok, I guess that damn thing is useful after all). I don't remember the exact wording, but essentially, the easement is granted for NID to install and maintain a ditch for water transport. It is not a general easment to Brandon and his LMS (Little Man Syndrome). Hooray, now I have the Man on my side, too. Oh, yeah, the easement goes the other direction, besides. I'm sure that, if there is a next time, Brandon will respond quite favorably to my new found legal research.

Never a dull moment...
- posted by Colin @ 10:08 PM