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I could not believe my ears! I was like, What??!! So, he's been spying on me!
Needless to say, the officer didn't make a report. He basically told me that it was Mr. Nelson who was invading my privacy and asked me if I wanted to file a complaint. But I wasn't about to press charges against him, poor guy. His wife had died a year before, and he was probably just bored and lonely in that big old house all by himself. But it was a bit creepy to think that all this time, somebody had been spying on me.
Now, every morning when I go for my swim, I look up at the trellis beyond my hedges to make sure nobody's watching me.
big old house | In the phrase big old [no comma], the word old has nothing to do with age. It's actually an intensifier which gives a meaning of REALLY BIG. Most people pronounce this [bɪːg ou̯ɫ] or even [bɪːg ou̯]. And you may even see it spelled big ol' or big ole.
My grandfather was the coolest. He drove around town in a big ol' white Cadillac and wore a cowboy hat and boots to his dying day.
Now, every morning... | This is our contrasting now. It's being used here to contrast what I did in the past with what I do in the present. In this function, it's at the beginning of the sentence and stressed. Learn more about now here.
wasn't about to | We know that the phrase to be about to [verb] is used when you're right at the point of doing something. But this phrase is also used in the negative with a different meaning: THERE'S NO WAY I'M GOING TO [verb] when doing something is completely out of the question for you. It's used to express that you outright refuse to do something you consider unwise or downright wrong. For instance, in this story, I felt it would be wrong to press charges against a poor old man who's just bored, so there was NO WAY I was going to do it.
Dude, that girl over there's totally checking you out. You should give her your address and invite her to your party tomorrow night.
— She's hot all right, but I'm not about to give my address to a total stranger. She could be a complete psycho for all I know.
needless to say | This expression is used to preface something the speaker considers SO OBVIOUS THAT IT DOESN'T EVEN NEED TO BE SAID.
probably | In conversational to rapid speech, most people pronounce this word [pʰrɑ́ːbli]. You can and should say probly, but spelling it this way just looks silly unless your quoting someone in a story or narrative of some sort and want to show how they actually speak.
I could not believe my ears | Note that I didn't use contractions and spoke word for word in this sentence in order to emphatically express my disbelief.
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