She glanced at it. Actually paused for a second. I remember thinking maybe, just maybe, she’d finally reconsider. Instead, she shrugged. picked up the charging cable and plugged it into her Tesla. Back in my garage, the monitoring screen flashed. Load detected. The relay armed. 10 seconds. That’s all it took. Then the driveway lit up like someone had fired a camera flash. There was a sharp crack of electricity. A burst of sparks shot out of the charger port and Diane Mercer jumped backward with a scream that probably woke half the neighborhood.
Her Tesla went completely dark, just dead. I watched the whole thing on the monitor, sitting there with my iced tea, trying very hard not to laugh because technically speaking, the system had worked exactly as designed. What I didn’t know yet was how Diane was about to react the next morning. And let’s just say she didn’t take the lesson quietly. I woke up the next morning to the kind of pounding on my front door that usually means something is either on fire or someone is very, very angry.
At first, I thought maybe a delivery truck had backed into the house. But then I heard a voice through the door. Open this door right now. And yep, that was Diane. I pulled on a sweatshirt, walked down the hallway, and opened the door. Standing on my porch was Diane Mercer, looking like she had not slept a single minute. Behind her stood two members of the HOA board. One was a quiet older guy named Paul, who mostly kept to himself at meetings.
The other was a younger woman named Erica, who I’d seen walking her dog around the block. Both of them looked confused. “Diane, on the other hand, looked like she was ready to start a war. “You tampered with my vehicle,” she snapped the second the door opened. I leaned against the door frame and glanced past her. Her Tesla sat in the driveway across the street, looking sad. The charging port was blackened around the edges, and the cable she’d used was dangling loosely like a burnt piece of spaghetti.
I raised an eyebrow. Morning, Diane. This isn’t funny, she said. Paul cleared his throat awkwardly. We’re just here to understand what happened, he said. Diane spun toward him. What happened is he sabotaged community infrastructure. I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Community infrastructure. She pointed at my driveway. That charging station? You mean the one connected to my private electrical system? You left it accessible. You stole electricity. Her mouth opened slightly, but nothing came out. That was when I stepped back inside the house.
