Due to illness, my grandpa had barely left his apartment lately. A nurse was looking after him, but I wanted to cheer him up and visited from another town. When I got to his parking lot and saw his car, I was astonished. A neighbor had posted a message on his window. The words made me tear up. Grandpa had already been through enough. Whoever wrote “dirty pig” had crossed a line.
Worn down and upset, I sought help from security. They showed me the footage and named the woman behind it. She had apparently bothered my grandpa before. That couldn’t slide. As I went to her apartment, I planned exactly what I was going to say.
I pounded on her door, my heart pounding in my chest. A woman in her 40s answered, looking annoyed. “Can I help you?” she snapped.
“You wrote on the windshield of the grey sedan downstairs,” I said, holding up my phone with the photo of her handwriting.
She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “That piece of junk? It’s been sitting there gathering dust for months. It makes the whole parking lot look trashy. Someone had to say something.”
My hands clenched into fists. “That ‘piece of junk’ belongs to a man who is currently bedridden,” I said, my voice shaking with suppressed rage. “He hasn’t washed his car because he is fighting for his life. He can barely walk to the bathroom, let alone go to a car wash.”
The woman’s smug expression vanished instantly. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Her face turned a deep shade of red. “I… I didn’t know,” she stammered.
“No, you didn’t know,” I shot back. “And instead of asking if he needed help, or just minding your own business, you chose to kick an old man when he was down.”
I held up the USB drive the security guard had given me. “I have the security footage of you vandalism his property. I can go to the police and the building management right now. Or, you can make this right.”
“I’ll do anything,” she whispered, looking genuinely mortified.
“Grab a bucket and a sponge,” I told her. “You’re going to wash his car. By hand. Right now.”
Ten minutes later, I stood by the car and watched as she scrubbed away the dust and her cruel message. Several neighbors walked by and watched, and I could tell she was humiliated, but she finished the job. When the car was sparkling clean, she wrote a genuine apology letter and slipped it under my grandpa’s door.
She never bothered him again, and interestingly enough, I noticed she started holding the elevator door for the other elderly residents in the building after that. Sometimes, people just need a harsh reminder that they don’t know what battles others are fighting.
