Everybody reacts to being wronged in different ways. Some grin and bear it. Others get aggressive and mean. And to some people, the best revenge is to erect an enormous middle finger statue for everyone to see, as an aggrieved man recently did after he had a dispute with town officials.

Local officials wouldn't let him build a garage, so he decided to put a statue of a middle finger on his front lawn to spite the officials.

Ted Pelkey, from Westford, Vermont, said that he has been fighting an uphill battle with town authorities over a garage he wanted to build on his property.

He told Boston.com:

"I've been put through the wringer by these people. It's just not right. was sitting at a bar and said to my wife, 'Hey, I want to get a statue made of a middle finger, and I'm going to put it up on the lawn.'"

So, when the town official denied issuing him a permit to move his business, claiming that his applications have "fallen short of the town's standards, Pelkey decided to put up something else instead.

He erected a 700-pound middle finger sculpture sitting on a pedestal 16 feet in the air as a not-so-subtle "screw you" to town officials. He also set up floodlights so pedestrians and nearby drivers can see his work of art all the time.

Pelkey said in an interview:

"I was sitting at a bar and said to my wife, 'Hey, I want to get a statue made of a middle finger. And I'm going to put it up on the lawn.' If you don't want to look at the building, look at this."

And after Pelkey had the middle finger built and erected, the town officials couldn't do anything about it. Though Vermont has strict laws about billboards, authorities have no legal pretext for removing the statue. It doesn't serve as any advertisement.

Installing the enormous, rude sculpture wasn't cheap. Pelkey had to pay a cool $4,000 to have it commissioned by a local artist and ensure it was visible in the morning, noon, and night.

Pelkey explained his intention for installing the structure, saying:

"It was critical to me to make sure that my neighbors and the people who live in this town understood that I didn't put that up there for them. It is aimed directly at the people who sit in our town office… I'm hoping that maybe some good comes out of it. Maybe."