The Mean Grown-Up

We live in a nice part of Calgary. On a block that has families with children. Some are little and some are not so little.

The people next to us have a crabapple tree.

Jason and I were sitting in the upstairs of our cute little apartment when we were disturbed by very loud children outside. It wasn't like they were screaming somewhere down the street... no - it sounded like they were screaming outside our window.

So I got up to look.

And sure enough there were three boys on our patio picking crabapples off the tree next door and shouting at the top of their lungs.

"Hello Guys" I said.

They all looked up at me.

Silence.

So I went to sit back down.

And the screaming ensued.

So I walked downstairs and open the door leading out to the patio. They were screaming so loud they didn't hear the door open. So I watched them continue screaming, picking crabapples and chucking them at each other.

"Are you going to clean that up?"

(in case you missed the part about the chucking the crabapples - it was on our patio)

The two little boys ran away. The third (who was probably a tween) just kept picking the apples (on my patio). I stood and watched him for a bit.

"Is that a NO?"

He looked up at me, cleaned up as much as he could (under my cold stare) and ran away.

I went inside and then thought the better of it and spent much of the evening sitting on the patio.

Good thing too.

They came back with boxes to collect crabapples in. Saw me and turned around.

Then they came back 30 minutes later with spray paint. Sprayed a bit of the sidewalk in front on my place... saw me and moved on.

Hooligans.

And I thought to myself "I have turned into the Mean Grown-Up" intent on ruining their fun.

I just wished I had had a rocking chair and a nice shotgun that I could have been cleaning every time they came around.