HOA KAREN KEPT STEALING MY WATER, SO I HOOKED HER HOSE TO SEWAGE, THEN A “UNIQUE” SWIMMING POOL JUST FOR HER.

I go home and find my hose coiled like a shocked snake beside the fence. It smells faintly of chlorine and audacity.

I put on a kettle, and then I do what any rational adult would do. I start documenting. Photos of the hose tracks. Timestamps on my phone.

A spreadsheet labeled “The Great Water Heist.”

Miguel leans over the fence and whispers, “You going to let her keep doing that?”

“Let her?” I say.

“No. I’m going to make her stop herself.”

He grins.

“You’ve got that look.”

“Which one?”

“The look of a man drawing blueprints on a napkin.”

He’s not wrong. I sit at my patio table and sketch three plans. The polite one—ask again. The bureaucratic one—complaint avalanche. And the creative one—redacted, for the element of surprise. I won’t reveal the creative one yet. Good tricks deserve silence.

But I will say this. If Karen insists on treating my faucet like an ATM, she’s about to discover the difference between water and what water becomes when you really, really shouldn’t be swimming in it.

For now, patience. Let her grab the hose again. Let the meter spin like a carnival ride. Let the HOA send another letter about harmonious aesthetics. I’ll be ready with documentation, neighbors who are tired of the splashy diplomacy next door, and a grin sharp enough to cut a pool noodle.

She walks past my house that evening, sun hat bobbing, and gives me a little wave—the kind you give to someone you think you’ve trained. I wave back, all friendly, all harmless.

Spoiler: I’m neither.

Karen loves dawn. It’s the hour when joggers pretend to be athletic and petty thieves pretend to be invisible. At 5:42 a.m., she tiptoed across our fence line in flip-flops that sounded like applause for her own bad ideas. The hose left my spigot like a hostage making a break for it.

I watched from the kitchen with coffee and the sort of smile that makes therapists rich. The motion camera I’d mounted the night before caught the full ballet. Crouch, yank, drape, splash. If she’d worn stripes and carried a money bag with a dollar sign, it would have been less on the nose.

By nine, my billable Niagara routine was back. By noon, a second HOA letter arrived.

“Your visible hose constitutes an unauthorized water feature.”

A water feature? I guess a puddle is a pond if a committee names it. The letter came with a courtesy warning, which is HOA for “we’re coming for your wallet next.”

Time for the polite plan. I printed an invoice—meter rate plus the previous day’s surge—and walked to Karen’s door. She opened it wearing a robe that could have doubled as a tablecloth at a mid-tier brunch. Sunglasses again. Indoors. Brave.

“I’m here with your receipt for community spirit,” I said, handing her the paper.

She skimmed it and smiled like she’d found a typo in my soul.

“I said I’d reimburse you. Don’t be dramatic.”

“Dramatic? I only circled the numbers in red so they’d feel special.”

She disappeared and returned with a check for half the amount.

The memo line read: “Donation—Neighborhood Harmony.”

I almost clapped.

“Gaslighting with stationery. Very on brand.”

I pocketed it and said, “Lovely. I’ll frame it right next to the camera footage.”

Her smile twitched like a dying neon sign.

Next board meeting, I brought the footage on a USB drive labeled “Movie Night.” Linda called us to order. Karen sat at the end in a blazer the shade of litigation. I plugged in the drive. The screen lit up with Karen’s flip-flop heist, looped, set to the accidental soundtrack of my sprinkler ticking like a time bomb.

“I was testing for a leak,” she announced.

“Ah, yes. Emergency situation. In your pool. The one shaped like a planetary ring. Bold strategy.”

Miguel coughed into his hand in a way that sounded suspiciously like laughter. Two neighbors swapped looks that said, “Finally.”

Linda exhaled through a smile. “Let’s maintain decorum.”

“Happy to,” I said. “Decorum begins with not siphoning your neighbor’s utilities like a raccoon at a soda fountain.”

The board table conferred, then delivered another compromise you could use to dust a shelf. No fines this time. Reminder to all residents: do not drape items over shared fences. Disputes should be handled privately.

Karen wore the expression of a cat that thinks it invented gravity. After the meeting, she stood close enough to weaponize her perfume.

“You’re making this bigger than it needs to be.”

“Trust me,” I said.

“This is the small version.”

Bureaucratic plan launch. I sent formal complaints—utility misuse, trespass, water theft, proper nouns all the way down. I cited the city water department for sport. No secret tricks, just a blizzard of neat, numbered paragraphs.

Meanwhile, Karen retaliated with flyspeck fines. My trash can visible for three minutes before 6:00 p.m. Non-conforming tomato trellis.

And my favorite: “Aggressive herb garden.” Basil, feared by many.

Time for a new flavor of evidence. I added a harmless, pool-safe tracer tint to my outdoor line. Nothing dramatic, just a confident shade of tropical blue.

Next dawn, Karen performed the flip-flop waltz again. By afternoon, her pool glowed like a Smurf spa. She hosted a mini soirée anyway, because denial pairs well with citrus. I walked past with Miguel.

“Nice color,” I said.

“Caribbean chic.”

“It’s always been this hue,” she sniffed.

I held up a mason jar of water from my spigot. Same electric blue, sloshing like the world’s worst sports drink. “Coincidence is having one twin. This is a family reunion.”

Neighbors started choosing sides. Karen noticed. The crossing of streets. The sudden unavailability of other people’s plans. She doubled down, of course. That evening, an envelope arrived. A formal notice of mediation at the clubhouse, signed by Linda in handwriting that could cut glass.

Translation: “Stop making us look like we can’t control Karen.”

I brewed tea strong enough to tan leather and pulled out blueprint three. The creative plan. The one I’d kept redacted. I took a quiet after-dark walk around my property and stood above the one pipe in this world with the worst attitude.

Not the city line. Not anything that could harm a soul or backfeed into anything public. Just a private, legal, profoundly unpleasant conduit whose only talent is ruining afternoons. No schematics. No tutorials. This wasn’t a DIY show. It was theater.

Miguel leaned over the fence.

“You’re smiling,” he said.

“The napkin blueprint smile.”

“I’m just thinking about tomorrow’s weather. Forecast says triple digits. Perfect for a swim.”

He grinned.

“Perfect for a lesson.”

I slept well. Somewhere, the golden swan floated in azure denial, and Maple Crest dreamed of decorum. Tomorrow we would all wake up to reality—pungent, educational, and wearing flip-flops.

Mediation morning. The clubhouse hummed with fluorescent lights and regret. Linda had arranged folding chairs in a circle, which is what authorities do when they don’t have actual authority.

HOA Karen arrived in a blazer with shoulder pads sharp enough to slice a bagel, carrying a leather folder the size of a carry-on. I came with a notebook, a pen, and the kind of calm that worries people.

Linda smiled like a substitute teacher on her first day.

“We’re here to restore harmony.”

“Lovely,” I said.

“Let’s begin with theft.”

Karen adopted her concerned-citizen voice, the one she uses to ask for the manager and for the ocean to be quieter. “I was under the impression that outdoor water is communal. Like for lawn health.”

“Your lawn floats,” I said.

“And my meter files assault charges.”

She slid a paper across the table.

“Here are my notes.” She’d tabbed them with colored flags, which is adorable when your argument is nonsense.

Miguel, there as a neighbor observer, tried not to grin. Several board members tried not to exist.

I offered my own packet. Photos. Bills. Timestamps. And a printout of the blue pool tracer looking like a Smurf crime scene.

“You’ll note the chronology,” I said.

“And the shade.”

“I reject the chromatic insinuation,” Karen sniffed.

Linda cleared her throat and suggested we find compromise. That word again. The HOA’s favorite emotional support animal.

“My compromise,” I said, “is that Karen stops stealing my water. In exchange, I stop noticing.”

Karen leaned in, perfume first.

“You’re making this personal.”

“It’s coming out of my house,” I said.

“It was already personal.”

A tray of lemon waters arrived, delivered by a volunteer with trembling hands. Karen reached for hers with the flourish of a monarch, clipped the tray’s edge with her elbow, and—bless the matrix—knocked the entire thing onto her open folder. Ice cubes skittered across the floor. Minutes soaked. Her evidence wilted like lettuce. The room exhaled laughter through pressed lips. She snapped the folder shut with a sound like a gavel. Face-plant light. A preview.

Linda declared a recess to air-dry feelings. I stepped outside where the sun was doing its best impression of a convection oven. Miguel joined me.

“You’re patient,” he said.

“Only because impatience would be a waste of good sarcasm. Besides, today’s lesson plan writes itself.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“Napkin blueprints?”

“Filed and stamped.”

Back inside, Linda wrapped things with the ceremonial nothingness—a written warning to Karen, and a reminder to me about tone.

Apparently, my tone had been seen loitering near the clubhouse without a permit. Karen swept out like a hurricane in a hat. I went home and brewed coffee strong enough to hold a grudge.

Then I walked to the side yard, where the hose lay curled like a green question mark. My creative plan wasn’t about destruction.

No walls kicked in. No wires crossed. No damage to anything that wasn’t already enthusiastically inviting itself into my life. It was simple theater, with plumbing as the stagehand.

There exists on my property a private, isolated, perfectly legal line whose contents you would not choose for a cocktail. It goes nowhere public, touches nothing municipal, and exists solely to ruin a day if mishandled.

My role was not to mishandle it. My role was to introduce a natural consequence to a very unnatural habit. Call it a moral of fluids.

I checked my documentation one more time. Photos. Timestamps. City guidelines highlighted like a freshman overachiever. And waited. Because if there’s one thing Karen loves more than sunglasses indoors, it’s doing the wrong thing at the exact wrong time.

At 2:11 p.m., the flip-flop waltz began. My motion camera beeped. Karen crept along the fence line like a cat burglar in a perfume ad, lifted my hose, and draped it through the slats with the care of a jeweler setting a stone. She turned my spigot, then vanished behind her golden swan, which bobbed innocently like a witness who didn’t see anything.

Everything was already in place on my side. All quiet. No dramatics. No diagrams. Just a tidy little consequence waiting to be turned on by a hand that wasn’t mine.

At first, nothing. Then the faintest, most persuasive aroma this side of a landfill in August. A smell with its own posture. Birds paused mid-chirp. Somewhere, a wind chime gave up.

I waited a full polite minute—room for growth, room for character development—then strolled to the fence. Karen surfaced from the pool, mid-sip of citrus water, blinked, and froze. Her blue pool, once Caribbean chic, had begun a slow, tragic migration through the color wheel toward “do not describe at dinner.” The golden swan looked like it was reconsidering its life choices.

“Is that algae?” she called, voice two octaves higher. The universal pitch of denial.

“If algae smelled like a dumpster had a midlife crisis, sure.”

She sniffed. Gagged. Tried to disguise the gag as a cough, and scrambled for the hose, which was currently delivering a lesson plan. She yanked it out, spraying herself from the elbow down in a fine mist of regret. The scream that followed could have headlined a haunted house.

Miguel ambled over, hands in pockets.

“Something die in there?” he asked with the clinical concern of a man already texting the group chat.

Karen shivered, pointing.

“He did this! He contaminated—this is illegal!”

“Illegal?” I asked.

“You’re the one attached to my line. You dragged the hose again. On camera.”

She sputtered.

“You booby-trapped your water!”

“I protected my property. You helped yourself. And now—shock—the self includes consequences.”

Neighbors gathered like storm clouds. Phones out. Faces lit by the glow of karma. The smell introduced itself to each of them by first name. From a safe distance, of course. Someone’s poodle whined and retreated behind its owner’s legs.

Karen tried to maintain dignity while dripping. She failed. Dignity does not do well with odic catastrophe.

“I’m calling the HOA!” she declared, as if it were a SWAT team.

“Please do. I’d love to screen the footage again. Maybe we can add smell-o-vision.”

She stomped toward her patio, slipped on a glossy magazine—of course there was a magazine—wobbled, windmilled, and pinwheeled three precise comedy beats before catching herself on the snack table.

Citrus water everywhere. Slices of lemon slid down the glass door like they’d given up on life. The golden swan bumped the pool ladder, performed a slow turn that suggested resignation.

She got the hose to her own spigot, turned it on, and tried to flush the pool. Too late. The lesson had sunk in. A chemical romance of the worst kind.

Karen gag-coughed and shouted for someone named Brent, who turned out to be a decorative husband with sandals and the energy of a default profile picture. Brent took one look, made a face I will treasure forever, and said, “Babe, we should, like, drain it.”

“Drain it where?” a neighbor asked, delighted.

“Into the street? Onto community property?”

Karen’s glare could have melted vinyl siding. “Get out!” she hissed at the world, as if authority could be declared by volume.

I checked my watch. “While you’re sorting that out, I’ll be at home drafting a friendly little summary for the board. With screenshots.”

As I walked away, Karen shouted, “You’ll pay for this!”

I didn’t turn around.

“Already did. In water bills. Consider today a refund.”

Back on my patio, I sat with Miguel and two iced teas. We clinked glasses to the soft symphonic sound of distant gagging and the wet slap of pool toys evacuating a war zone.

“You evil genius,” Miguel said, admiringly.

“Evil? No. Educational.”

He laughed.

“You know this isn’t over, right?”

“Of course it’s not over. She still has a folder to dry and an ego to iron. The HOA will hold a special session of nothingness. There will be three new letters on my door by morning, all printed on paper that smells like denial.”

I smiled into my glass.

“And then we see how well community harmony plays in front of a judge who’s had coffee.”

Across the fence, a pump wheezed to life, trying to pull disaster out by the gallon. The sun dipped a little. The smell did not. Somewhere, a screen door slammed. Maple Crest inhaled scandal like a summer storm. And I sat there, polite as you please, a homeowner who likes tomatoes and occasionally, when forced, writes lesson plans.

By sunrise, Maple Crest smelled like someone left a gym bag in the sun and dared it to dream big. Karen’s pool pump wheezed like a smoker on a treadmill. She tried masking the problem with citrus candles, which only created a new scent category: “afternoon at the landfill.”

At 9:00 a.m., a bright yellow flyer appeared on our doors.

“Emergency HOA Session, 6:00 p.m.” Because nothing says leadership like clip art and panic font.

Before the session, I filed my day’s amuse-bouche: a tidy packet to the city’s code, water, and health departments. No diagrams. Just dates, photos, and the repeated phrase “unauthorized use of private utility line.” By noon, a white city truck rolled up to Karen’s house. Out stepped a health inspector in mirrored shades—the non-judgmental kind you wear when you’ve seen things that haunt calendars.

He approached the fence, sniffed once, and lost three months of optimism.

“Ma’am,” he said over the gate, “that pool can’t stay like that. It needs to be drained and sanitized.”

Karen chirped, turning her garden spigot with the bravado of a magician revealing a rabbit that smells like despair. The inspector watched as oily water skittered toward a storm drain like it had plans.

He raised a hand. “Nope. Not into the street. That’s a violation.”

Karen blinked. “Where am I supposed to put it?”

He pointed to her lawn. “Containment. Then proper haul-away.”

She stared at her grass like it had betrayed her. It had the good sense to look innocent. Brent hovered beside her, sandals soul-slapping anxiety into the sidewalk.

I arrived on my porch with iced tea and Miguel, who narrates chaos like a nature documentary.

“Observe,” he murmured, “the suburban monarch in distress, attempting a controlled release of catastrophe.”

Karen fetched a tarp, a kiddie pool, and—because she is who she is—two decorative planters shaped like Grecian urns. She missed the tarp corner, slipped into a slurry of her own pool water and lawn, and performed a slow, muddy pirouette. The inspector didn’t even flinch. He’s a professional.

The golden swan, exiled to the grass, stared at the sky like it was reconsidering aviation school. By late afternoon, her yard looked like a Renaissance painting titled “Hubris in Beige.” The inspector taped a notice to her gate, then walked over to me.

“You the neighbor with the camera?”

“I am a humble archivist,” I said, offering a printout of stills. Karen mid-heist, hose in the fence, timestamp brighter than the sun.

He took them, nodded once, and wrote more notes than a jazz drummer. “Expect a follow-up,” he said.

“Be still my heart.”

Six o’clock. The special session of nothingness. The clubhouse was packed. Even the potted plants looked curious. Linda sat at the front with a gavel someone must have ordered for her birthday, and you could tell she’d rehearsed. Karen wore a fresh blazer and the face of a woman who believed in the cleansing power of denial. The scent of her yard preceded her like a herald.

“We are here,” Linda announced, “to address a serious disturbance to community harmony.”

“Yes,” I said.

“The theft of my water.”

Karen jabbed a lacquered finger at me.

“He sabotaged me!”

Linda made the face she reserves for words like “sabotage” and “budget.”

“Let’s proceed one at a time.”

I set down a stack. Bills. Photos. Neighbor statements. Miguel raised a hand with a text chain printed out like a scroll—neighbors timestamping the flip-flop waltz. I ended with a tidy affidavit.

“I did not connect my outdoor spigot to any municipal or public line. All activity occurred on my property. Any connection on the other side of the fence was performed by a party not named me.”

Legally bland, deliciously pointed.

Karen produced her leather folder, opened it with a flourish, and poured a small waterfall of lemon-water-stained paper onto the table. The earlier spill had turned her tabs into papier-mâché. She dove into the pile, grabbed something that used to be an agenda, and then—in the universal language of karma—the folder strap looped around her wrist. She yanked. The strap snapped. A manila envelope shot across the table like a frisbee of shame and smacked the gavel. The room tried not to laugh. Tried.

Linda clacked the gavel twice, as if that could fix physics. “Miss Karen, do you have evidence he connected his hose to… filth?”

“He booby-trapped it!”

“On his property,” I said.

“Which you entered, repeatedly, via hose.”

“It’s community!” she cried.

“The fence is the border. My side is my country. You invaded with PVC.”

A low chuckle rolled through the room. Even the potted ficus seemed amused.

Linda attempted diplomacy.

“Perhaps we can agree that mistakes were made…”

“By her,” I said.

Karen drew herself up.

“This entire neighborhood depends on cooperation. He refuses to share.”

“Share.” I held up my bill.

“Pay this. Then we’ll share high-fives.”

Brent finally spoke, in the tone of a man bargaining with a parking meter.

“Babe, maybe we should, like, offer a settlement?”

Karen cut him a look that could butter toast and set it on fire.

“We are not paying him to abuse us!”

Linda pinched her nose.

“Given the city involvement and odor, I propose two motions.”

She read, voice wobbling.

“One, immediate cease and desist on any use of another resident’s utilities, with fines for violations. Two, Karen to fund professional remediation of her property and any affected neighbors’ enjoyment thereof.”

Karen spluttered.

“I’m the victim!”

“Of gravity and cause and effect,” I said.

“Harsh masters.”

Votes were cast. Hands rose. Even some of Karen’s book club allies stared at the ceiling and lifted their palms like balloons. Motion carried. Karen made a sound like a teakettle discovering its purpose.

I stood.

“One more item. I’m filing in small claims for the overages, the tracer dye cost, and a healthy pile of time wasted. Also requesting a no-hose order within fifteen feet of our shared fence, backed by an injunction if she continues to wrap hell with rubber tubing.”

Linda scribbled, noted.

“We don’t adjudicate court matters, but, um… good luck.”

“Luck is for people without videos,” I said.

Karen lunged for dignity. “You’ll regret this.”

I smiled. “I keep hearing that. And yet, here I am. Hydrated.”

After the meeting, the exodus began. The social exile phase. Neighbors who once nodded at Karen now found nearby clouds fascinating. Her allies discovered sudden, urgent dog-walking schedules. She stalked down the sidewalk, heels clicking like an angry metronome, and stepped squarely into a shallow mud crater formed by her own drainage efforts. She slid, flailed, and—because the universe is an artist—sat down. Full contact. No injury. Maximum symbolism. A hush fell, then a collective intake of breath that sounded a lot like suppressed laughter.

I almost felt bad for her. Almost.

I went home to make a little legal packet for tomorrow’s filing. The printer hummed. The kettle sang. The golden swan next door lay deflated against the fence like a fallen empire. Miguel knocked, leaned in, and waggled his eyebrows.

“Court?”

“Court,” I said.

“Dress code: petty but lawful.”

He grinned.

“You going to bring props?”

“Only the greatest prop of all.” I tapped the USB drive.

“Accountability.”

I slept like a man whose hose was safe and whose tomatoes were finally getting their share. In the morning, I’d meet a judge who, with any luck, had a sense of smell and a lower tolerance for nonsense than our gavel enthusiast. And if Karen wanted a final performance? Well, I’d save my best line for an audience.

Small claims court smells like pencils and consequences. I arrived early with my holy trinity: bills, stills, and the USB drive labeled “Movie Night—Director’s Cut.”

Miguel wore his responsible-citizen shirt, which is just his normal shirt tucked in. Karen swept in late with a rolling briefcase and sunglasses so reflective the bailiff could check his hair in them. Brent followed, radiating supportive wallpaper.

Judge Patel took the bench with the calm of a person who’s seen enough lawn feuds to fill a streaming service.

“Names,” he said, and we obliged.

I went first. Facts, short and clean.

“Neighbor repeatedly attached my outdoor spigot to fill her private pool without permission. I documented usage spikes, video evidence, and tracer confirmation. Sought reimbursement. Received half a check marked ‘donation.’ Continued violations. Escalating costs.”

Karen stood and arranged her face into concerned-citizen mode.

“Your Honor, this is a misunderstanding. In our HOA, outdoor water is communal for lawn health.”

The judge blinked slow.

“Counselor, do you see a lawyer here?” he asked the air, then turned back to her.

“Miss Karen, your neighbor’s spigot is not community property.”

She gestured at my folder like it had insulted her parents.

“He booby-trapped his hose! With filth!”

Judge Patel steepled his fingers.

“Did you have permission to attach to his spigot?”

She hesitated. The pause had weight.

“I assumed—”

“Assumed,” he repeated, letting it echo.

“Show me harm he caused you on your side, after you attached yourself to his water.”

I handed up the city inspector’s notice and the HOA’s cease-and-desist vote.

“Also, for clarity, my setup involved a private, lawful line entirely on my property. No connection to municipal or public systems. No risk to others. Consequences occurred only when Miss Karen attached herself. Like touching a hot stove and filing a complaint with the pot.”

Judge Patel nodded.

“Video.”

Lights down. Movie night up. The courtroom watched Karen’s flip-flop waltz in reverent silence. She flinched at the closeup—her daintily threading the hose through my fence. On the loop’s second run, someone in the gallery snorted. The judge did that cough-laugh judges do when they remember they’re judges.

Karen tried one last stand.

“This is harassment!”

“Ma’am,” the judge said, “harassment is him calling you names. This is documentation of you taking his water.” He tapped his pen.

“My findings: conversion of utilities, trespass via apparatus, and willful continuation after notice. Damages awarded at meter rate for the spikes, reimbursement for tracer cost, filing fees, and a modest sum for time spent mitigating.” He paused.

“And while I can’t issue injunctive relief here, let the record show: further incidents can and will be grounds for injunction in a higher court. You will not use his utilities again. Understood?”

Karen swallowed.

“Understood.”

She said the word fighting all the way out.

“Judgment for the plaintiff.” Gavel.

We shuffled out. In the hallway, Karen spun to leave, caught the wheel of her briefcase on the leg of a bench, and did an elegant half-lunge that ended with papers fanning the floor like a surrender flag. Brent grabbed, missed, and knocked over his own coffee into the pile. Courtroom comedy complete. Somewhere, the universe tipped its hat.

Two weeks later, a check arrived. Official. Boring. Perfect. I cashed it and built a patio. Neat pavers, a shady pergola, and a small recirculating fountain that burbles like a smug secret. I added a locking hose bib, because growth is good, and a new stainless hose reel, because spite loves aesthetics.

There was enough left for a weekend rental of a tiny teardrop camper. I parked it in the driveway for one glorious afternoon just to watch Karen pretend not to see it.

The HOA posted a new rule in plain language a golden retriever could follow:

“No resident may access another resident’s utilities under any circumstances.”

Neighbors started waving at me with both hands.

Karen? Her friends grew allergic to eye contact. At block parties, conversations migrated three feet away from her wherever she stood, like she was a cell tower no one trusted. She began taking walks at dusk, when it’s easier to pretend the world is squinting, not avoiding.

A week after the patio was finished, I invited a few neighbors over. We toasted with iced tea and lemon slices. Irony is best served citrus. Someone asked what I’d name the fountain. I considered, then set a tiny, tasteful plaque at its base: “In Memory of the Golden Swan. Funded by Karen.”

Miguel laughed so hard he had to lean on the fence that started it all. I sent the HOA a photo for their newsletter. They did not print it, but I know they saw it.

And because pettiness thrives on closure, I mailed Karen a postcard from my own mailbox, paid with my own stamps.

“Don’t worry, Karen,” I wrote.

“I’ll send you a postcard from the patio you tried to fill.”

I almost felt bad for her. Almost.

Then I turned on the fountain and let the burble do the talking.