the littering kid

So, I'm kind of a sucker for those kids that come to your door wanting your money. You know, the ones selling $11 candy bars for chess club. Although, I'm a pretty good judge at the kids who deserve the contribution or not. Apparently I was a little off tonight.

Ding dong goes the door. I run to answer it in the middle of making dinner and see that the tall kid on the other side has a brochure and a box. First off, I can't help but see that he has a monumental mouthful of food in his mouth. Between chewing and swallowing he somehow conveys the message that his basketball team is raising money to keep kids off the street and out of gangs. Yeah, it didn't quite compute in my head either. $6 would buy a pack of Reeses peanut butter cups or you could simply donate $3. Search and Destroy were already eyeing the bright orange Reeses package so I gave in and handed over the $6. A portion for the candy and a portion "to keep kids off the street and out of gangs". Gee I feel better now. I contributed to society in a positive way.

A few minutes later we went outside to get the mail. Crunch. I lifted up my foot to see what I had stepped on. What do you think it was? Oh yes, a Reeses peanut butter cup package. In my driveway. Huh, that was funny?! We hadn't opened ours yet. Then another crunch and another Reeses package. Up the street I could see the tall kid with his clipboard and box... and a scattering of orange Reeses wrappers trailing behind him. I stopped mid-stride in dis-belief and formulated my thoughts into one. I had just given my money and support to a litterer. I ran back inside, grabbed the package that we had just purchased from the kid and told Search and Destroy that we were going on a short walk. We took off bare-footed while dinner was just about ready to come out of the oven in pursuit of the littering kid.

Half a block later we catch up with this kid's friend who was also out selling overpriced candy bars to keep kids of the street and out of gangs.

"Where's your buddy?" I asked him. I needed to talk to this kid. Search and Destroy were wondering what the heck their mom was doing, marching up the street, pregnant and barefoot to the nice person who had just given them candy. I had simply explained to them that this person had left trash in our yard. I told them that littering was wrong and that I wouldn't stand for it. By this point I had Search and Destroy on my side, and fired up, spouting occasional, "Meanie!" and "Idiot" (that one bought Destroy a time-out) and "You shouldn't throw litter in our yard!"

And then, "but you're not going to give the candy back, right Mom?".

The kid's friend walked with me to where his buddy was. He was trying to weasel someone else into buying candy from him. The litterer.

"Hey!" I said when I finally caught up to the kid. "I want my money back! You threw trash in my yard and left it all over the street. I'm not buying candy from someone that litters!" Way to go with the words, Meg. That'll show 'em. Real tough. Now you know why I didn't go to law school.

"Yeah!" Piped in my wing man, Destroy.

He just stares at me. "Uh... we sold candy to a lot of other families tonight. It was probably them. We didn't litter." Oooh, right. Really convincing. So someone else walked up to our doorstep in the last 10 minutes and dropped a candy wrapper.

Me: "Well, you were chewing on a mouthful when you got to my house and you left your wrappers in my yard!" And now you're denying it!

Him: "No. I didn't leave it. It was someone else."

He shrugs me off and walks stalks off to the next house. His friend, stunned, just watches me finally turn and walk away with my barefoot rug rats in tow. I was defeated. And I wanted to hurl those little peanut butter cups at the kid's face one by one. It didn't play out in my head that I would be walking home still clutching the candy and $6 in the hole.

Search: "Mommy, why is littering so bad?"

Me, speaking loudly while the friend was still within ear-shot: "Because if everyone dropped a piece of trash on the ground, our world would look like a land-fill".

Search, pausing, probably wondering what a land-fill was: "Oh. Well, I'll pick up all the trash".

And they did. They picked up every last little piece of trash on the way home. This included numerous Reeses wrappers, a flattened beer can and an old cigarette box (you can tell we share our neighborhood with some, uh, white trash). So we washed our hands when we got home.

In the end, I wasn't able to get my money back and I obviously didn't do anything to improve the kid's outlook. I mean, I don't think he'll go searching out a trash can anytime soon, but I feel like I made a point to my kids. And that's what really counts, right? Now that they've seen their lazy mom march up the street barefoot to make a point, I think they'll think twice the next time they want to throw some trash out the window.

And it made me feel better too. Even though these candy bars stare at me from my kitchen counter, I was able to vent my anger towards the perpetrator. Being a girl, I don't often vent my anger towards the person offending. I usually throw things instead.

Think I'll go eat some Reeses now.

In the Car...

I heard this commercial for a local bar around here. Can't remember the name but I guess it doesn't really matter. The commentary went something like this:

"Hey ladies! Is your husband just lying around the house, bored and in the way? Well, get him out of the house and tell him to go to (so and so) bar! You can take that bubble bath and clean the house. Without help from him!" It went on and on about how he'll think you're such a great wife for suggesting it and maybe if you're lucky he'll bring home home some take-out!

Then at the end this was their slogan, "Saving marriages, one cigar at a time".

I can't even begin to express my thoughts after hearing this commercial. I won't even get started. Any of you care to?

What the Monkey?

The kids and I took a trip to Old Navy today. Destroy needs some school clothes before he starts preschool in a couple of weeks. If you've ever been to Old Navy you'll know that they have these big buckets of bright shiny balls right at kid's height. So we make our way back to the toddler section and the boys find the bucket of balls. So I spy some cute brown corduroys and walk over to them with the kids and balls in tow. As I turn around to make sure they were following me I see a ball bouncing away and a little girl sitting in a pristine pink stroller, with pink shades slightly ajar on her little head. A furious Dad pushing the stroller looks at me and says,

"Your kid just hit my kid in the head with a ball!" He says this to me without even checking to see if his daughter was OK, who, by the way didn't even flinch. So I tell Destroy that he needs to be careful because he just hit this little kid in the head. So Destroy proceeds to go put the ball back because he knew he had just made a mistake. I tell the man, who is still standing there, that I was sorry (in kind of a sarcastic tone, which he probably caught) and he leaves. The woman next to me who heard it all just said, "Amazing" to which I replied, "Yes, I thought we were all trying to raise our kids here". "No kidding" she says. Meanwhile I am trying to get Search into the stroller and he's really resisting. Through his screams I could hear the same man over near the ball buckets talking loudly. I go ever there and he has found an Old Navy store employee and he is pointing at Destroy who is putting the balls away. He is obviously explaining to the employee what had just happened. As I walk over the man points right at me and exclaims, "That's the mom!". The employee tells me that I can't allow my child to throw balls around (from the bucket which holds tons of bright, shiny balls right at kid's eye level). I look the employee in the eye, and I can see the man in the background, and I say, "Some of us don't have children who will just sit in the stroller". The man behind him heard me and walked away.

So with only a couple of 5T shirts I walk up to the check out with two unhappy little boys feeling like I was about to break out into sobs. The little girl's mom is up there talking to the same employee assuring him that the little girl was in fact, just fine. After this whole incident I thought of a millions things I wanted to say to the man like, "good luck with public school and soccer games". I looked for him when I went outside but I never saw him. Good thing, I probably would have run him over.

I'm still seething and it's already been a few hours. Am I alone in feeling like some people are so retarded? I completely agree with the guy that Destroy should not have thrown the ball in there, but did he really have to react like that? I know I wouldn't have. It seems that in order to raise a child it takes a whole community, but with people like this around I feel very alone in raising my kids.

Here's a funny link of a mom in a store with her kids. Be sure to read the description too!http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130144061675

Who would do this?

So we got home from vacation (ok, over a week ago. I'm a little behind). This is what we came home to.














And this,














and this.
Someone had not only taken all the horizontal posts out, but broken off the vertical ones. I guess some teenagers had some fun while we were gone at our expense. I hope we never find out who it was because we filed a police report! Luckily since we are renting, all we have to do is call up the landlord.

Airplan Pet Peeves

So, we're flying home from Utah last week. Search and I are nestled into our window and middle seats and Destroy and Aaron are sitting in front of us. The seat next to me was still empty when down the aisle walks a lady who is about 65-70, somewhere in that range and sits down. She has very pretty unnaturally blond hair for her age and had obviously spent quite a bit of time lounging by the pool. Hence the leather skin. She sits down next to us and we are all minding our own business. After we are up in the air, seeing that I am very tired from the time change and lack of sleep during the week, I lean my head against Search car seat and attempt to doze. As I doze off I can hear Search open and close the plastic window shade. I hear him close it and cuddle with his blankie because he is also tired. A little while later, I don't know how long because I was asleep, leather lady pokes me on the shoulder. I look up at her and she asks me,

"Would you please open that window, I like to look out". I just stared at her. I thought maybe I didn't comprehend because I was still groggy but when I replayed it in my mind, I realized that, yes, she really had just asked me that. Wow. I was too stunned to know what to do so I just opened it. I couldn't believe that she woke me up. And I couldn't believe that she asked me to open the window because she can hardly see out anyways! Search threw a fit because he was tired and wanted it closed. So I closed it and went back to sleep without looking for a reaction from Barbie's Grandma. The gall of some people.