22:12 - 2004-11-17
Tonight On America's Most Laughed-At
*chuckles*
Ah, I've experienced quite a few unique things in my short life (and body). There was that time the helicopter landed in our nearby grocery-store parking lot, or the time I had to go the hopsittle because I ate paper (wasn't that an enriching experience)...
I'm sure there were others, but then...what I'm about to tell you is probably at the top of my bizarre little list for the past year or so:
I was half-listening to another culturally-warped episode of Wife-Swap when the phone rang. I picked it up and my dad charismatically bade me to open the front door and look across the street to where a group of yard-jobbers had been at work trashing our neighbor's field--when they got stuck. I felt not only a sophomoric "ooooo" rising from my amus-ed vocal chords, but a strange appreciation that my dad had called me from his cellphone just to point this out.
I opened the front door to investigate. I had to see this with my own eyes.
Bob, across the way, whose yard is always one of the redeeming factors to our otherwise semi-defunct little stretch of pavement, had gotten hit pretty bad. Tire-marks went half-way into the expansive yard, and at the end of them was a humiliatingly-obvious, little, black jeep-esque vehicle. I'm asuming it was an Amigo, whatever that is, since the words "AMIGO" were printed blatantly across the side of the car. Bob, who's an elderly, bald, good-natured sort of fellow, had also seen to it that the scene was properly illuminated by a hallugen lamp or two. In the dark, what looked to be a teenage girl in a typical oversized jersey wandered around in a very "busted" fashion as her father or some other middle-aged figure conversed sheepishly with our neighbors: Bob, whom I've already outlined a bit, and Jerri, wis wife, who ain't the sort of person who I'd wanna run into in a dark alley, having vandalized her yard. Jerri was/is absolutely livid. And...she can be pretty scary, just in general. Here in Texas, it's legal to pull out a shotgun and give your trespassers a couple-a new airholes, provided they're still on your property or within range. I chose to stay inside.
As things unfolded, we found out from Bob that the suspects' claim was that this had all been an accident--They had swirved into the yard in order to avoid hitting a dog.
I remarked to Bob that they must've been dodging Clifford, the way they'd driven all the way up half-way between the back fence and the curb. Moreover, the dog idea didn't quite explain the staggered pattern of eight-inch-deep treadmarks that had throne turf and mud up a few feet in every direction. I giggled when I saw the flower-bed siding they'd torn out in a frantic attempt to give the tires some traction. But the soggy, peat-like ground had rendered escape completely futile, at least for the majority of the culperates. Apparently most of the jeep's occupants were teenagers who'd bailed as soon as Bob showed up, leaving the 30-something male guardian to hapless fabricate rationalizations. Though I'm sure Bob was peeved about his yard, his smile looked pretty genuine as he video-taped the painfully unmistakable evidence.
We were shocked to find that Bob was hesitant to press charges. My fiery, irish-minded father had a good mind to slash their tires (the vandals') or to have the ridiculous little auto impounded. As the family discussed the whole event, I found that I was not so shocked that such a thing would happen-- That was no surprise at all, I mean...this is earth. Where there are people sharing space with nice yards and wide-wheeled cars, there will also inevitably be ocurances like this one-- What really tickled me was that these people, unlike most, had been caught so overtly and so embarrassingly. What could they have been thinking, if anything? It's only been raining for three, maybe four days now. Bound to be a little bit of mud, don'tcha think? And, I mean, one assumes these acts are committed under that assumption that through them the perpetrater(s) will attain some kind of attention or respect...or at the very least, some shady satisfaction. But how do you think their little hoodlum buddies will react when they find out that not only did these idiots get stuck--they got caught! We're definately not gonna be the only people laughing at them then.
*laughs*
Honestly, I'll be relating this story to my grandkids.
As Jhonen Vasquez so aptly put it, "When does life start getting interesting?"
