49 Minnits 'a'Tween 'Em

Yeast Almighty. 0:49, and I'm drinkin' beer, and dammit, Janet -- I wanna toss this thang right off my front landing and into the friggin' Cumberland, right now.

But I ain't gunna.

Changing pity parties, get this: Three young tykes were playing, outside. It's a beautiful 72°F, so I have my balcony door open (much to the kittehs' delight). I hear the tykes, right below. I go out, look over the rail, and they're around my scooters. The blond boy is pointing at the speedo of the Vino. The short-haired boy says he and his cousin busted it out with a rock. The tail light, too!

No wonder I didn't notice that the night of the crime.

So, here's the thang: I know the kid's mama can't pay for that damage, nor would I expect it (the speedo is a sealed unit, just under $150 -- I only paid $1K for the scooter), but part of me says I at least ought to let her know, somehow, what her kid's up to sometimes, when no one's lookin'.

I did much the same thing, along with my best friend, when we were eight or nine or ten. We'd gone to his uncle's, in Olive Hill, KY (just a half-hour from home), and his unc had a junker out in his cow pasture. My pal and I started chucking rocks at it, and we eventually took out all of the glass in it.

Boy, was his unc pissed. He says he planned to sell that stuff, and we just dug into his pocket. To this day, I don't believe he was planning to sell pats off this old car, but he made the right point: That wasn't your stuff to fuck up, boys. We felt bad, and I'm still not proud of it, 'cause I was old enough to know better. If we'd have asked, his uncle probably would have handed us a pellet gun, and said, "Have at it!"

Point being, I feel like we learned a valuable lesson, that day. I don't wanna tell anyone how to raise kids, but doesn't it take a village, here? What if this kid doesn't learn a lesson? What might that mean for him in the future?
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