For three weeks, Bernadette had been blocking my private driveway almost every morning. Her silver Corsa sat across the entrance while my two boys waited in the back seat, watching the clock and wondering if they would be late for school again. I asked politely. I knocked on her door. I explained that my children were getting late marks and that I could have problems at work.

She never seemed to care. One morning, after making us wait again, Bernadette simply shrugged and told me, “You’ll survive.” But after nineteen mornings, I had finally had enough. I spent the evening collecting timestamped photographs and checking exactly what I could legally do about a vehicle blocking private property. The next morning, at quarter past five, I made a phone call. As Bernadette slept peacefully inside her house, I watched her car from my kitchen window and said, “No, she has no idea what’s coming.”