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I used to have a basketball pole in my front yard..... until the last day of May, the day I came home from the hospital with my gimpy leg ....

The basketball pole is a portable pole ( it ironically is the same pole that I backed INTO, back in November ) ... anyway... the neighbourhood kids used it a lot.... they often left pop cans, water bottles, chip bags etc after using it .... it was pretty annoying........ but when they started grabbing the net with their fingers, and hanging on it, it started to get on my nerves... eventually, they ended up bending the pole.... and I started getting after them.... two kids in particular were really cocky.... really really cocky..... the day I came home from the hospital, i caught them hanging off the thing two or three times....
and I'll admit, I was pretty punchy .... and half doped out of my brain... regardless, I'd warned them a dozen times, and after warning them AGAIN.... went back in the house, and went up stairs and like every MR WILSON in every neighbourhood, watched through a crack in the bathroom window to see if I could CATCH them! duh..... two minutes after I came inside, boom... back on the net, hanging from the stupid thing....

and I LOST IT ........... went running down the stairs, screaming like a banshee...

I don't remember all of the things I said, and that, is a gift from GOD! but I embarrassed my kids, AND my father who was visiting.

I took the basketball pole down, in front of them, laid it on the grass and ordered them to go home...... apart from the fact that I totally embarrassed myself, I DID make quite an impression on those two little jerk kids..... from that day on, they hated me.....

I didn't see much of them... almost none, but every now and then, while I'd be up north working, they'd be back here, leaving crap at my door, threw a beer bottle at my back wall one day, smashing it all over the patio stones by my BBQ .... annoying little kid stuff.... At one point, I arrived home from Belleville, and found my front door wide open ... and my hidden key out back, was missing...... apparently it wasn't all that WELL HIDDEN EH??? anyway, I'm not sure that was THEIR doing but I am really starting to wonder....

Last week, they threw a bunch of wet toilet paper at the front of the townhouse, and cut the " No Flyers Please" sign off my mail box, just to remind me how much they miss the basketball pole!





I kept reminding myself that its just annoying trivial kid stuff.... until this week :

When we got home from the cottage last night, we found a big mess..... they'd covered the whole back wall of the town house with mud, and berries, and other unmentionable things... disgusting really....

They egged the front of the townhouse and broke two windows... the kitchen window on the front, and the window on the laundry room at the back....

what a disheartening thing to come back to, from holidays... more like a maddening thing to come home to.

I don't suppose there's much that can be done.... The police did up an incident report, because of the vandalism to the windows, but because they didn't gain entry to the dwelling, there's not much that they can do....

blasted kids anyway..... I spose the smart thing to do would be to put the stupid basketball pole back up out front... let the little #*)$(*#&$(*U kids have their way....

sigh........ SOMEBODY is grumpy after vacation!

sigh... on that note, I'm gonna go plunk myself in bed and stew and fret for a while....