Hoodlums

Wow.. All I can say… Well – I had MORE to say the other day.

I went to pick up one of my daughters from her Mother’s house. After pulling out of her driveway, and heading out, I heard a loud BANG as something hit the car. I really didn’t know what it was – and for an instant, thought maybe the trunk had been open, and had slammed shut. I said “What was that!?”.

Amber quickly says – “I don’t know, but someone in a blue jacket and brown hair just ran behind that house!”.

I made a quick u-turn, and pulled up in front of the house, got out of the car, and looked to see what had happened. Something had been thrown, and had hit the top of the trunk. It was dented & scratched. Pretty substantially.

I called 911, and let them know that someone was throwing something at cars along the road, and where I was at. They said that they would send an officer.

Meanwhile, I’m still standing in front of the yard, and see the person in the blue jacket trying to sneak around to the other side. I yell “HEY!!! STOP!”. Like a deer caught in headlights, he DID stop! “COME HERE!”… He starts walking to me… and Amber says “I know him! – that’s ______ ______ (name withheld to protect him, since he’s a minor). He goes to school with me and has a class with Robin!

The adrenalin was pumping through my veins, and I was seeing red. I didn’t touch him, though. I called 911 back, and let them know that I’d caught the kid, and that they’d better get an officer here pretty darned quick. The dispatcher was professional, and wanted to make sure that everyone was okay… “How old is the person?” she asked me. I asked him, and he says “14”. She then questioned as to whether I had hurt him. haha. I sure wanted to – but I had not touched him – and I made sure not to touch him through the entire episode. Amber as my witness.

The police finally showed up, and asked what happened. I smiled and looked at the kid, and said “Go ahead – tell them what you did.” I didn’t want the story to come from me – I wanted a confession from him in front of the officer – without my prompting towards any of the happenings.

He spilled the beans. His story was that he’d thrown a rock across the road to see if he could throw it across the road (2 lanes each way, plus a turn lane at that location – so 5 lanes…) Well, I hope he has no plans to be on a baseball team, because the rock didn’t make it over 1 of those 5 lanes.

Long story short… Now I need to get estimates to have the damage repaired. His parents have offered to pay for all the damages. So – as long as that goes smoothly, I’ll handle this in a civil manner, and not have the police pursue criminal charges.

Kids…