In the dim light of the streetlamp, she set the spray mechanism to “stream” and went to work. Quickly she moved the bottle in a graceful, sweeping motion. She left as furtively as she had arrived. Three weeks later, much to the horror of the jerks who lived across the street, a rather obscene directive appeared on their lawn, spelled out in dead grass letters. Alas for these evil neighbors, the Suburban Avenger had succeeded once again . . . I looked up from my bowl of cornflakes and glanced across the street, wondering—just wondering, mind you—if I could get away with it. In every nearly perfect suburban neighborhood, there is the family that makes it “nearly” instead of “perfect.” In ours, it was the Nabbits. You could find the Nabbit house without a street number. I would sometimes use its distinctive features to guide other people to my own home. “We live across the street from the house with the pick-up truck parked on the lawn,”
