Surreal Encounter of the Third Kind

Just when you think most people are okay, and that they will learn to get together in a jiffy to help one another, there comes along an exception that makes you despair of the human race. 

The setting. Across the road from our house is a woodland property that belongs to a cousin. He's never paid attention to it except to cut down the trees and sell them a few years back. He has never criticized or complained to us for stacking our firewood there prior to cutting it up and storing it. So, there is a nice pyramid of cut-up logs standing there, visible from the curve to all who approach, with no house next to it nor fencing surrounding it.

The strange occurrence. Yesterday afternoon, while a student was in my study, I notice a car pull up in front of our house. Not expecting anyone just yet, I went to look from the kitchen window, to know who was about to knock on my door. A man stepped out of the driver's seat, went around and opened the trunk. A woman came out of the passenger side and went around, past the man. At first I simply think they stopped there just to change drivers, no problem. But, then I see the woman cross the road to the wood pile. Question marks arise in my head. I open the front door and ask if I can help. The woman is picking up a small log and the man says they're just taking one log for the cat. 

The surreality. As I am considering the strangeness, I mention that that is our firewood for the coming winter, and that, if they wish, they could drive down any lane, like the one just a few meters from us, and find wood that would do very well for a scratching post with no problem (I assume that's what they meant by it being for the cat.). I speak calmly, with no stridences, nor show of anger. At that point, the woman calls from across the road, "I'm sure this is paid for." I have no idea what she means by that. The man is saying, "No problem, no problem," in an accented Spanish. She crosses the road, digs in her wallet, pulls out a blue card with letters and numbers impressed on it, and flashes it quickly in my face. "I'm from Hacienda (Spanish IRS), and I hope you have everything to date with them, because I'm going to hunt you out!" She leaves for the car, and the man follows her, saying, "Don't worry until the letter comes." They get into the car, a two-seater Opel Tigra several years old, and leave. I stand in the doorway, my mouth open. 

If they had knocked on my door, asking to know who owned the firewood to ask if they could have a log, like any sane, normal people, I would have had no problem letting them have one. The fact that they simply helped themselves to one without bothering to ask, bothered me. Don't assume because something is simply lying there that it has no owner, or that the owner isn't nearby. What blew my mind totally was their reaction. I'm still mulling that one over. It was obviously an empty threat, but extremely petty. To threaten someone with an audit over a log that you don't even ask to know if the owner will let you have it, smacks of a petty, vindictive mind that is accustomed to having everything go their way. These are the kind of people that make you lose faith in humanity. 

That there are people out there that will kill you for nothing is not as demoralizing as encounters such as these, with their tiny little minds that seek to bulldoze everyone else because they feel themselves entitled to what they want. It's these sort of people that will vote for racist xenophobes who feel as entitled as them. How sad their tiny hearts must be.