So, we've got a handful of kids in our neighborhood who like to run around, ride their bikes, scooters, and skateboards in the street, and scream and yell at each other for no apparent reason. In other words, they seem to enjoy doing all the things that most kids their age are expected to do.
With one major exception - these kids are a bunch of ignorant, rude, disrespectful, little punks.
Last year, a piece of downspout blew off the side of our house. I laid it down in the driveway next to the house, so that I could put it back up when the weather improved. You'll never guess what the little mother-fuckers across the street decided to use for a skateboard rail one day. The downspout was trashed, squished flat and all banged up. That afternoon, while it was still lying there in their yard, my wife asked them where they got it.
"Uhhhhh...I dunno."This was followed by the usual talk about staying off of other people's property and not taking stuff that doesn't belong to you. Apparently these kids' parents (for lack of a better word) never bothered to pass that advice on down to their spawn. Then came the obligatory talk with the mother of one of the little shits, who offered the obligatory apology and the obligatory (yet hollow) offer to pay for the damaged piece of gutter.
Fast-forward a month or so...While doing some yardwork, my wife calls me over to look at some of her plants against the back fence in the corner of our yard. They look a lot like plants that have been jumped on. And, curiously enough, the old metal and wire fence has been damaged at that spot. Yes, our little friends had decided that walking AROUND the block to get to one another's house is an unacceptable option, so they took it upon themselves to create a shortcut across my brand-new $3,000 lawn.
Seeing as all we had at that point was circumstantial evidence (yeah, right), we didn't take any actions other than patching up the fence and putting up a section of wire mesh to block off their access point.
That lasted all of a week maybe. Later on, as I was mowing the lawn, I see the middle section of the fence has been bent down and (believe it or not) looks an awful lot like what a fence would look like after having been climbed over by a bunch of little snot-bitch punks.
I wire that piece of fence back up and tie a trip wire around the tree and the top wire of the fence, I twist the wire just enough to hold it in place, so that any attempt to apply pressure to the fence will spring the wire and let me know someone's hopped over. I checked with Attorney General Reilly's office prior to doing this to see if
Claymore mines were on the state's list of banned "dangerous weapons". Apparently, the use of such a device in this kind of situation is against the law in Massachusetts. Who knew?
Fast-forward a couple weeks...My wife is on the second-floor back porch playing with our girls, when she hears our Neighborhood Brain Donors Association once again walking across the lawn alongside our house. They stop when they get to the fence and look up to see my wife looking down on them from above.
"Um...can we climb over your fence?"I'd like to include her actual reply here, but she was so utterly dumbfounded by their lack of anything resembling brainwave activity, that she can't remember exactly what she told them, though it was something along the lines of, "Um...no."
Fast-forward a month or so...Yes, there's more. I look out the living room window one day to see our little friends are using my front porch as a fucking skateboard launching ramp, going down my short concrete walk and over the curb in front of my house. So, I go downstairs, open the door and politely ask them, "What the hell are you doing on my porch?"
"We're just skateboarding."I now realize I'm talking to some truly pathetic, brain damaged individuals, so I try to explain to them without using any big words that if anyone of them falls off my porch and crack his empty little head open, their parents will sue me and take away my house. This public service announcement was followed with a stern warning to stay the hell off of my property in the future, as well as a reminder that this was not the first (or second, or third) time they've been told this.
Apparently, the little Evel Knievels had also been using it as a motocross ramp, as the tire tracks on the stair risers would strongly indicate.
Fast forward to New Year's Day...I'm returning home that afternoon from the New Year's Day Machinegun Shoot out at the Harvard Sportsmens Club. After unloading the car, I stop to chat with my neighbor who's out shoveling snow who tells me the kid across the street just walked across my yard (again). I ask him which one. He says, "That fat little bastard right there," pointing to the kid standing on his front porch across the street from my house. I call this one, the apparent leader of their little band of idiots, Pumpkin Boy.
Discretion gets the better part of me, however, and I decide not to confront Pumpkin Boy in the street while carrying a shotgun, a handgun, and a couple dozen rounds of ammunition. I go inside, secure my guns, and get back to some of the important things in life - playing hide-and-seek with my daughters and chain-drinking coffee.
Fast-forward to yesterday - 1:20 PMBear with me, we're almost at the "end" here.
My wife calls me at work yesterday to tell me that the little shits are at it again. This time they've actually put a CHAIR in my yard, next to the fence, so as to facilitate their climbing over it. I tell her to do nothing about it for now, other than to take the chair and put it in the trash. She says it's too cold to bother with it, and maybe if she goes out later, she'll deal with it then.
6:15 PM - I arrive home from work.It's dark when I get home, but I decide to see if the chair is still out there. Sure enough, I walk around back, and there it is. I'm not sure (nor do I care) whose chair it was, but I drag it over to throw it on my trash barrels, and what do I see sitting on top of the trash there?
Yep.
ANOTHER GOD DAMN CHAIR!My wife had taken the chair away, and they immediately replaced it with another one. Like, we have
some nerve taking their chairs away.
How dare we?Needless to say, that signified the end of diplomatic relations with these little asswipes. The next one of them I witness trepassing on my property, for any reason, will get their parents a complimentary visit from a Boston police cruiser. The last thing I want to do is burden the BPD with this matter. They've got enough manpower problems chasing down leads on all their unsolved homicides. But the last thing I'm going to do here is "take the law into my own hands".
We know where that would lead.
How do you spell "unsuitable"?
Oh, and please keep the "shoot, shovel, and shut up" comments to yourself on this one. That scenario might be OK for coyotes and the like, but in this case we're talking about creatures of significantly lesser intelligence, so let's show a little compassion, shall we?
