Jack and I had just moved into a small rental house for a temporary work assignment. It was a quiet neighborhood with a patchy lawn and tan bricks. We’d barely finished unpacking when a woman named Lindsey, dressed in pastel and holding a tray of cookies, stopped by. She was overly friendly, but her eyes kept darting around like she was sizing us up.She warned us about a strict HOA rule:
only one car allowed per driveway. We shrugged it off; we weren’t staying long. But three days later, I woke up to the sound of tow trucks hauling both our cars away. Lindsey, wearing a bathrobe, stood nearby, looking smug.I called her out on it, mentioning a small sticker on my car that indicated we were part of a government operation. Lindsey’s face went,pale when she realized she had just interfered with an undercover investigation. I made a quick call, and the next morning, a suited agent arrived at her door.The agent explained that she had disrupted an active federal investigation by towing two marked government vehicles,
costing $25,000 in damages. Lindsey was left stunned and helpless, staring at her shattered coffee mug. Jack couldn’t resist a final jab: “Maybe next time, just bake the cookies and leave it at that.”
