Remember when we had our soft opening at The Village at The Old Southport Inn a couple of weeks ago?

I know, I was wicked excited too.

And it was all fine and dandy until I went away for a period of time (approximately 1.5 hours, to the market) and… you guessed it… a squatter moved in.

And I don’t know what you know about squatters, but my attorney (Blaze) tells me that they are very hard to evict.

Like, I can’t just go in and kick mine out. There is a whole official legal string of events I need to go through.

I can’t even shut off the damn dude’s water.

What’s with that?

Anyway. My squatter is so jerk-y, he won’t even tell me his legal name for my official documents.  Hence I have sunken to the point of profanity.

I call him… The A**hole.

I know, but there is not a cute alternative like there is with ‘fluck’.

I thought beings engaged in illegal activities would try to hide or flee when approached. But The A**hole does not.

See the pic above, where he is just hanging out and eating the other tenants’ breakfast? Well, I thought I’d just meander over, and he would see me – the landlord – and make a break for it.

I’d brought my trusty camera to capture that break.

And, no, I do not have a zoom lens.

I know!

I was, like, a foot away!

Ugh. The nerve.

So since then, he has spent his days taking full advantage of all of The Village amenities, flaunting the fact that I can’t evict him.

And he is not nice, not nice at all, to the other guests. Taunting them at will and without mercy.

At one point, a friend and fellow inn owner (okay, she has birdhouses too), told me that I should just deal with it, that The A**hole was probably homeless and indigent (which just auto corrected to ‘indecent’, which he totally is) and I should take pity on him and let him stay.

But then I got a shot of his foot.

This dude’s nails are in way better shape than my own.

And if he can afford regular manicures, then he does not need to squat at my place of business.

And I was waiting and wondering what to do, and The A**hole was causing ruckuses all willy-nilly and whenever he felt like it and I had no idea what to do when early one morning – just like they say in the books – a hero appeared just when I needed one.

Meet Widget.

I know.

A baby.

Such a cute and unassuming little mechanism.

The perfect spy.

Widget and I had a chat and he set to work immediately, the little sprite.

First, he observed from afar.  Learning The A**hole’s moves and habits.

Then, when it was the right time… he made himself known.

Okay, that first approach did not go so well. The following blurry photo was taken from The Village security footage, and shows Widget hitting the ground after being tossed out of The A**hole’s cottage:

However, the security camera also caught Widget’s immediate reaction.  Ah, the ignorance and determination of youth…

And so it went, on and on…

And sometimes Widget was not successful. And he was so great, took it like the little man he is and would leave and regroup to try again another day.

But I know that our amazing wee Widget has had a profound impact on The A**hole.

Because, as Blaze is amassing boxes and boxes of documents in order to bury the little dick in legal paperwork, The A**hole is not as comfortable just pillaging and plundering his way through The Village any longer.  He is more focused on his surroundings.

A bit more wary perhaps.

In fact, he has become more like an upstairs city neighbor, leaning out his window greeting all the passers-by.  Shouting out advice or asking where you’re going.  Like he’s trying to fit in.

No seriously…

I know. I think I heard a bit of an Italian-slash-old-neighborhood-Brooklyn accent myself.

So I’m thinkin’, if he just becomes that nosey second floor neighbor, I might be able to live with him a little while longer.

We may drop the lawsuit.

Huh.

On second thought, we may just stop the ‘complimentary breakfast’.

Thanks for readin’.

As always, come on over to Just Ponderin’s Facebook page to comment <3

*Just a reminder that “The Inn” was once really an inn, well-known for its lobster bakes and relaxing spot by the water.  But this was back in the early 1900s. It’s been a home since about 1918/1920 as far as our research tells us.  So today, if I woke up to strangers in their bathrobes hanging out in my kitchen and waiting for breakfast, I might be a little uncomfortable…. or a lot.