The Saga of the Recycle Bin Part 1:

See, here's what started it.
A few weeks ago (three, precisely, in fact), we popped the Recycle Bin out as per usual routine. It was the second week of the fortnight, you see. First week of the fortnight is the Rubbish Bin, second week the Recycle Bin. Simple.
So we, or rather mum (because after waking up at 5 in the morning and having to leave by 5:30, I have neither the time nor the inclination to do that), popped the Recycle Bin out ready for collection. Again, simple. Poetic in its simplicity.

But! Last collection, t'was not to be! Simple, that is. For the Recycle Collecting people did not come at the predesignated time - i.e.; any time between 7am and 2pm - and so I did not bring it back in before Bingo's dog walk and then after Bingo's dog walk I forgot about it. ALL about it.
It was three days later when mum finally remembered the Bin - because our indoor 'can't be arsed to take the recycling outside yet so we'll put it in here for now' box was overflowing - and realized that neither of us had collected it. And upon going out of the front door to fetch it from outside our house, where she had left it, found it not there. It was upon popping out of our stupidly over-sized wooden gate that locks (story for another time, kids) that she found it. Wheeled up to the spot beside next door's back door. And sat beside their own Recycle Bin, which was so solidly filled to overflowing that its green lid wouldn't shut.
Cue: panic.

What did we do, she agonized over her necessary-to-survive-post-work-cup-of-tea? We could leave it there, hoping that next fortnight they would have their own Recycle Bin emptied and give it back - it was obvious it was ours and not theirs. Ours had our house number emblazoned across the front and back in waterproof white TipEx - but what if they didn't and just decided to keep it? But if we did take it back what would happen? Would they get angry? What if they got angry? They were the the wrong - and it was already in use, I might add. Our Recycle Bin with our number on it was being used by those Recycle Bin nabbers. And AS A RUBBISH BIN!?! -but it would be little consolation to us if retrieving our rightful property caused all out war.
Sound silly? Sound over-dramatic? Well, one day I'll tell you the story of The Hellhole That We Used to Live In, but in the meantime, I'll just let you know that we learned the hard way that upsetting your neighbours in any way - even when you are right and it really is wrong to allow an eight year old child to continue to try and club your small and cute guinea-pig to death with an iron bar. Or to say "sorry, it's sweets or nothing" when upon one dark Halloween night a whole troop of kids from age three to teenage knock on your door and chant "trick or treat: give us money". And so on and so forth - can lead to Hell becoming even worse.
So you can understand her hesitation. I, however, did not hesitate. I felt angry. And righteous. How dare these anonymous people - we had never seen them. After our last set of experiences we decided that in our new home we would remain as unnoticeable as possible - STEAL our Recycle Bin, just because they had (presumably) forgotten to put theirs out and we had forgotten to bring ours in the very second the Recycle Collection Men had finished doing their thing? And not even to use it for Recycling: they were filling it with Rubbish bags! Some of which were open and had spilled out all sorts of...stuff...into our previously pristine Bin! Anyway, we NEEDED our Recycle Bin! Our Rubbish Bin only needed to be emptied every six weeks or so, but  our Recycle Bin was always groaning and desperate to be emptied by the time each council regimented fortnight had past. And in any case, we were right and they were wrong, so there! I was angry righteous woman, and I didn't care if the whole street heard me roar!
With that in mind, I stormed out there, grabbed the bin and made to bring it back inside. Whereupon I found two of the neighbours on the back door step about to let themselves in. And now rather than using the key in the man's hand, both the man and the woman were stood motionless, staring at me.
My heart leapt into my mouth. My stomach turned over. I knew I had to do, or say, something to try and keep the peace and not begin Hell all over again. So I said the first thing that came into my mind.

"See?" I exclaimed with a beam: "I TOLD her we wouldn't have lost it. I knew it would be somewhere. She worries. Bye!"

And with that, for better or worse, I dragged the Recycle Bin into the garden, positioned it into its rightful place and came back inside.
Later the same day, I saw them again when Bingo trotted out for his evening constitutional in the garden. They were smoking in their garden, and when they saw me they smiled at me and I smiled back. I took that as an encouraging sign. I told myself I was being silly to panic. The exact same thing had happened with the other set of next door neighbours from the same house (it's a split building) soon after we had moved in three years before - only this was with the Rubbish Bin - and we had taken it back under the cover of darkness and worried ourselves stupid for days and nothing had happened. It was fine.
Everything was fine...

Fast forward three weeks to today. The Recycle Bins of the street were emptied while I was at work and anxious for there to (NEVER) be a repeat of the Recycle Bin Saga (which I considered now to be over) I did as we had always done before the Saga had ever happened and collected the Bin in immediately. No problem.
Fast forward through today until about an hour and a half ago. I let Bingo out for his 2pm-ish constitutional in the garden (so that he is comfortable and his walk can be later, giving me more time to ignore the desperate cries of the housework and watch TV shows online instead) and followed him half way up, talking to him as I always do (the neighbours that live on the other side of us think I am mad because of this). The door to the Recycle-Bin-Stealers' house was open, as it often is, and a delicious cooking smell wafted through the air, as it often does. I just had time to note this while chattering away to Bingo, however, before the man that had seen me reclaim the Recycle Bin then smiled at me whilst smoking a cigarette popped into view with a really odd look on his face and slammed the door shut, then locked it. Then I can't be sure, but I THINK, he shut the window, too. I didn't hear or see it close, but I'm sure it was open when I walked into the garden, and it was closed when I walked back inside again, so he probably closed that too.

It came as a horrid shock, and I've been brooding on it ever since.
You can see why I am unsettled, right? He seemed upset. Was it with me - or us, as a household - or was it with something or someone else? Had he closed the door because he was angry that we had taken back our Recycle Bin and wanted to show me that he was angry, or was it merely a coincidence? Perhaps he had a private conversation he needed to have and realized that if I was in the garden performing my usual dance of having to call "do a wee-wee, Bingo!...Go on!...Go on!...Bingo, get on with it...Bingo, really; your walk isn't till later: DO A WEE-WEE", I would be able to hear him, and so shut the door, which is fair enough. Perhaps he just decided to shut the door that very second, and seeing me in the garden made him jump, explaining the odd look upon his face, which again is fair enough. Perhaps he simply didn't want to hear the usual round of ""Do a wee-wee, Bingo!...Go on!...Go on!...Bingo, get on with it...Bingo, really; your walk isn't till later: DO A WEE-WEE" and that was why he shut the door, which is fair enough, too...
...Or, perhaps, he hates and despises us.

*BITES LIP*

I know I can't do anything. If he despises us, he does, and that's that, but what if this is the precursor to another round of misery and distress and terror, albeit with different people? What if I have ruined our chances of a happy, quiet, SAFE home with my recklessness?
Am I overreacting? I hope I'm overreacting. I mean, even if he does hate us, it might not mean anything will happen, right? He might just avoid contact - not that we had much, if any, bar a few tentative smiles over the garden hedge - and that wouldn't be so bad, would it? That's probably all that will happen.
And he might not hate us anyway! It may all just be a coincidence; me reading too much into something that is actually nothing...

...I have no idea if this post makes any sense, but I had to get it out there and talk to someone - I can't talk to The Mother; she'd have another breakdown, I just know it - before my head exploded from the inside out. I feel a bit better now I've done that, although I'm still petrified of what might happen.
It's probably nothing, though.
*BREATHES*
Nothing at all...

*SIGHS*
Here's hoping that The Saga of the Recycle Bin Part 1 ends up staying at Part 1 and never develops, huh?