I just yelled at my neighbor by mistake.

You see, there are frequently people digging in the trash in my neighborhood.  Most of the time they are homeless people looking for bottles and cans, which is fine with me, but sometimes there are people digging through the trash looking for papers.  I'll watch them meticulously digging through every piece of garbage and they'll fill up grocery bags with papers that I can only assume contain information that you really, really don't want that person to have, or at least that's the goal. 

When I see these people, I usually take the dog out for a walk and then stand about 10 feet away and just stare at them until they go away.  When I do it, sometimes it takes a couple of minutes.  When Gabriel is there, it usually only takes about 30 seconds.  Whatever.

Anyway, we just came home from the grocery store and there's this guy I've never seen before standing in front of our trash can with the lid wide open and he's holding up a bunch of papers and reading through them.  I immediately jump out from the car and, in my most accusatory voice, said "Excuse me!  Can I help you with something?!"  And then I furrowed my eyebrows menacingly.  He didn't even look up.  So I yelled "HEY!" and he looked up and saw my furrow.  He looked confused for a second, then dropped his papers in the garbage can, and walked back to his apartment behind my house.

His only crime:  Looking through the coupons he got in the mail before he threw them away.

I wanted to chase after him and apologize but I don't think he speaks English, and in my panic I couldn't remember how to say sorry in Spanish.  I didn't look to see which apartment he went into, otherwise I kind of want to bake him cookies and bring him a bottle of wine.  Although, I'm not even sure how well "Sorry, I thought you were a homeless person trying to steal my identity" would go over anyway.

I'm such a jerk.