Do do do, lookin' out my back door . . .

Boy, do I feel dumb.

My house, in case I haven't told you before, backs up to the businesses on the south side of Main Street. There is, quite literally, a used car lot in my backyard.

Well, there is a drainage ditch which separates the two plots of property, but still, CAR LOT. BACKYARD.

There is a car detail business near there too, and on a sunny day the sound of a power washer just permeates the neighborhood for hours. Really adds to the charm of the place, no?

But back to the car lot. You know, the one in my BACKYARD?

That car lot hasn't been there long. In the five years we've been in this house, there has been a pet store, a home improvement business, and a different used car lot back there. Or maybe two car lots. I've lost count at this point.

The current car lot (which uses as its business name some generic "your credit is good here" sign which I'm pretty sure is copyrighted) has been there about six weeks.

About a week ago, Anna Marie complained that she couldn't sleep because a car horn kept going off. I figured one of the neighborhood cats or possums had triggered a car alarm, and that was par for the course.

But then - we came home Sunday night, and something like an 18-wheeler horn kept going off. I looked around for one (there aren't supposed to be any parked on the residential streets in town) but saw none. And then when I looked out my back door, I noticed lights on in the RV at the lot. And people moving around. And that horn kept going off, but I didn't call it in because I feel like I'm the only one who ever complains about such things in town.

(I know I'm not the only one who complains. I'm just sayin'.)

It stopped. And I thought maybe some teenagers had broken in there, but then this morning as we were leaving for school, I looked back there to find KIDS. With BACKPACKS. Also, I assume, leaving for school.

Someone is living over there, y'all. In an RV in a commercial zone. With kids. So I'm torn, because it's totally against the law to do that here, but there are KIDS. I don't want to put people out, not in this economy. I resolved to just let it slide, since maybe it was a temporary arrangement.

As long as there were no more horns involved.

So tonight, it started back up as I was trying to get Anna Marie down for bed. You know, in the room at the back of the house, just a few hundred feet from the car lot in my BACKYARD. And when I got finished tucking her in, I called the Sheriff's Department, and as the phone was ringing, I looked out my back door.

They were gone. GONE. I had not a clue what to tell that poor dispatcher, except that I was sorry I'd taken up his time. It wasn't the 911 line, just the regular number, but still.

OF COURSE THEY WERE GONE.

*Irony alert - part of my job is to go get the 911 dispatch logs and put the calls in the paper. Guess what I have to go do in the morning? I can't WAIT to see what they write about this call.

So, I feel really, really dumb. They were there, and now they aren't. And I've wasted a call to the dispatch office, which I now have the indignity to relive tomorrow morning when I read the log books.

It's like David Copperfield got all Las Vegas on that RV, and poof - thin air.

At least I called anonymously from my cell phone, so they won't know I was the crazy RV horn lady who called.

Edited to add: As I was finishing this up, guess what? THEY'RE BACK. And honkin' that horn like a boss! Boo-yeah, validation! Heck yeah, I called back. God a different dispatcher too. Guess I'd better go look out my back door one more time.