I was sitting at work having a cigarette this evening when something odd happened. Right behind our building, abutted against our barred and covered rear driveway, is a bar, and a fairly popular one, as far as I can tell. Some dude comes out and kneels down next to a Jeep Cherokee parked on the other side of the bars and begins letting air out of one of the tires. He didn't punch a hole in it, but was merely letting the air out through the valve. At first, I thought he had a flat and was filling his tire with an air compressor I couldn't see, but then I noticed that a) the tire was fine, and b) upon standing up, I couldn't see anything next to him. Several times, he got up, looked up and down the street, and went on with his less than valiant attempt to deflate the tire.

I took in all of this within the span of about twenty seconds, and within the first ten I realized that this guy was probably pissed at someone in the bar and was getting some kind of pathetic, petty revenge on them by letting the air out of their tire. Not being one to yell "WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE?", despite being on the other side of an impenetrable wall of bars, I took a moment to figure out how to stop him. After all, not only was his attempt weak, but I couldn't just stand there and let it happen.

The solution to the problem was easy. I coughed loudly, and the echo made sure he heard me. Clearly, he hadn't thought about looking down the driveway while getting back at his new enemy, and he jumped up when he saw me standing twenty feet away, staring at him. He applied pressure to the tire valve stem one more time, then jumped in his truck- parked next to the target of his vandalism- and sped off.

I went back to work bewildered by the man's cowardice, pleased that I had taken care of things without any semblance of violence or threats (to him or myself, mainly myself), and chuckling at the fact that despite the vandal's efforts, the Cherokee owner's right rear tire had lost no more than a pound or two of pressure.