My neighbor let her dog use my lawn as a toilet every morning for six months and never cleaned up once — I stayed polite until she made one comment I couldn’t forget, and by the next morning I’d taught her a lesson without raising my voice once.

“I should have,” I admitted.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t want to start a fight.”

“But you were doing all the work.”

“Yes.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No. It wasn’t.”

He looked toward the grass.

“Did you finally tell her?”

“In a way.”

“What way?”

“A quiet way.”

“Did it work?”

I looked across the clean lawn.

“Yes.”

“It worked.”

“Good.”

Then he ran away across the grass with his arms stretched out.

But his question stayed with me.

Why didn’t you just tell her?

It was the right question.