Idiotic 14-Year-Old: TEN POINTS!

I was so close to running some kids down with my car this morning.

Okay, I wasn't really going to run them down. I was going to roll down my window, warn them to get out of the road, and when they didn't I was going to just kind of tap them with my car. I've about had it with these damn kids walking down the middle of the road making the cars wait for them.

Scattered about our neighborhood there are probably about 15 kids between the ages of 10 and 15 who hang around and are generally annoying. I wouldn't mind them so much, except I WATCHED them come up onto my porch one day last year and take one of my pumpkins, the day after another one of my pumpkins had been smashed in the street right in front of my house. GRRR. At the time I didn't have the nerve to open the door and say anything--or maybe I was just too stunned by their own nerve--so I just stood there in my living room and watched them come up and take it. Anyway, really for the most part these kids are okay. They don't commit big crimes, they're just kind of loud and obnoxious. But one thing that they do CONSTANTLY that really drives me nuts, is the way they all walk down the middle of the road. (Actually, of the group of them today there were two who were politely walking on the sidewalk, God bless 'em.) And the thing is, they don't walk. They saunter.

So today, at 7:30 in the morning, I come driving down Alabama Street and here is this whole herd of tweens and teens taking their time, making their way sloooowwly down the middle of the road. So I came up behind them and crept along while they walked. Well, when I got very close and almost had to stop, these two boys turned around and looked at me. Then they turned back and just kept walking. DIDN'T MOVE. They just kept going right on their chosen path down the middle of the road.

Now I understand that two and three-year-olds don't always know better than to run into the street. I know that even some older children, say five-year-olds, sometimes forget their rules and go into the street. But these kids are FAR TOO OLD to be doing this, and I've about had it. They know better, it's dangerous, and I think that if they're just going to keep doing it they need a lesson taught to them, and I would love to teach them that lesson with the bumper of my car.

Now of course, the problem is justifying it to the court when I get arrested for it. I'm seriously tempted to call down to the police station and just flat out ask what kind of trouble I'd get in for tapping them with my car.

It reminds me of the time Martin and I were driving down Old 231 coming into town and there were a couple of teenage girls walking down the middle of the right lane. Traffic had to go around them and everyone was honking at them, but they wouldn't get out of the road. In fact, they were yelling at the cars who were honking at them. They screamed at us that "These cars need to stop blowing they damn horns!" Um, if you want everyone to quit honking at you, maybe you should get out of the road. They weren't even walking to the side of the road. They were walking side-by-side right down the middle of the lane. Martin was going to call the police that time but he didn't have the LPD number in his phone.

So anyway. The next time I post may be from my jail cell....