Alright! I did a little reading up, and it looks like the statute of limitations has run out, so I'm home free to tell you the story of how I got revenge on my neighbor with fireworks.
Around a little over a decade ago, when I was a teenager, I had a shitty neighbor. Oh, at first he seemed nice enough. But after his girlfriend caught him abusing her young daughter, they packed up and left and he started showing his true colors bright and clear to his neighbors.
Now, in my neck of the woods, it's pretty normal for people to shoot off fireworks starting from mid or late June, with the amount increasing the closer you get to July 4th. It's also not uncommon to hear a handful of fireworks going off on the 5th and even fewer on the 6th. But that part isn't quite as important.
This tale begins in late June.
We were having a pretty bad drought, to the point where there were advisories against throwing cigarettes out your car windows while driving (yes, those advisories exist here), under brushfire warnings, bonfires and campfires were banned, and there was a very heavy warning against grilling outdoors (because this is 'Murica, where our need for BBQ'd meats is greater than our need to not set the whole damn metro area on fire). There were also warnings to be careful with fireworks to prevent brushfires.
My bad neighbor, let's call him Mr. Jerkoff, had decided he wanted to see what my house looked like on fire. So he was shooting bottle rockets and roman candles up on our roof. It was a handful here and there at first, but then it started getting kind of aggressive. I confronted him about it, and he pretty much confirmed that he was trying to see if he could catch our roof on fire.
After not being able to reason with him, and a handful of escalating efforts to catch my house on fire, I called the police. Mr. Jerkoff's house was near the top of the street, and he could see the police cruiser before it turned onto our street. He hurriedly went inside, locked the door, and pretended not to be home. I spoke with the police for several minutes, and they basically said they couldn't prove that's what he was doing, and unless he manages to set our house on fire and leave evidence of it, there really wasn't anything they could do. They also implied that if I were to 'accidentally' bust out one of his windows with a bottle rocket, he couldn't prove it was me either. Gotta love small-town cops, right? By the way, bottle rockets are illegal here. And roman candles. But pretty much everyone ignores that, including the cops.
So Mr. Jerkoff continued on trying to set my house on fire. I'd begun going outside and hosing down the roof every morning, just to try to prevent his success. (The house was short, Mr. Jerkoff's house was tall, and he had a high up back deck that allowed him a pretty good shot at our roof.)
This went on for about a week.
On July 4th, Mr. Jerkoff went out with friends. He wasn't the one driving, so his car was left at home, parked on the street.
I'd bought a full-sized mortar shell (also very illegal here, no one cares until you level half a block with them or blow someone's limbs off) during one of my firework runs during this period of time. A full-sized mortar shell is basically the giant shots of blooming sparkles that you see launched into the air during professional fireworks displays.
So what did I do while Mr. Jerkoff was out having fun?
Well, I did't feel that 'busting out a window' was anywhere near enough, because he was trying to set my house on fire.
I stuck the mortar shell into the tailpipe of his car, lit it, and ran like hell.
Blew pretty much the entire exhaust system off his car.
He couldn't prove it was me.
He moved away before the next 4th of July.
I wasn't then and now I am still not sorry for it.
He was trying to set my house on fire.
I think the cops knew it was me. I don't think they cared. They knew what he'd been up to.
So, that's the story about the time I blew the exhaust system off my neighbor's car in retaliation for him trying to set my house on fire for a week.