Knowing that the Amazon driver was going to walk up my steps, I waited. My neighbor sat on one of the two chairs on the outcropping of the landing outside of her apartment.

“Be careful,” I told the Amazon driver as he started up the stairs. “She definitely bites. She’s mean. That’s actually my girlfriend. She won’t even let me sit over there or stand near her.”

The Amazon driver quickly looked up to the top of the stairs to see my neighbor sitting in the chair facing the stairs. Between you and I, the fact that she was motionless and not reacting made her seem a little menacing.

My neighbor couldn’t decide whether to grin or to be horrified.

“Seriously be careful! She’s almost rabid!”

The driver made the turn at the top of the stairs so fast I thought he might jump over the rail to get out of there.

When I laughed, he grinned. As he made his way back toward my neighbor, I hollered. “Can I come back over there now, please?”

The driver shook his head confusedly as he went back down the stairs.

“Now that driver is going to go back and tell his coworkers that he met a woman so mean she makes her boyfriend stand at the other end of the landing when they’re outside.”

As he got into his van, he looked up at me and smiled. I waved and then circled my right index finger around my ear and then pointed at my neighbor who was still sitting in her chair.

“There goes your reputation,” I said.