T.P.ing, Cow Tipping and Other Teenaged Activities

Do you remember when you were young and stupid? Sneaking out of the house to meet the neighbor boy for a stolen kiss or taking a late night stroll through a sleeping suburb with your best friend? Did you ever crank call your friends parents and ask them if the refrigerator was running? How about cow tipping (all my midwestern friends know what I'm talking about)? Did you ever T.P. a neighbors house, car or lawn?

When Zeke was two years old, Dave and I got really serious about our health. Having a child made us realize how important it was to be around to see our kids grow up. Gone were our carefree twenties, when we could eat whatever we wanted, drink like a fish (without a nasty hangover) and still go to work on less than four hours sleep. We were a family unit. If we wanted to be around another forty or fifty years we needed to make some serious lifestyle changes. We decided to watch what we ate and we walked for exercise. It worked. Dave lost 95 lbs. and I lost 30 lbs.

I know you're wondering how does our new lifestyle relate to crazy teenage pranks? Let me explain: Dave and I would often walk late at night, usually around 10 p.m. We lived in a very quiet suburban neighborhood with nice sidewalks and great street lighting. It was safe. We'd bundle up Zeke and tuck him in his stroller, taking turns pushing him up and down hills and around bends. If it was cold, we'd stop by Starbuck's on our way home for a coffee. It was great bonding for our little family.

One night while we were walking, we noticed some kids in our neighborhood were having a party. Good for them, we thought, remembering fondly our own parties at that age. You know how you look back on those years through rose colored glasses and only remember the good times, conveniently forgetting the bad. So we were happy for the group of teenagers hanging out on their lawn, laughing and listening to loud music. We spent the rest of our walk talking about it and laughing at our own stories of similar times.

We stopped in at Starbuck's around closing time. We ordered our vente, de-caf, fat-free, sugar-free vanilla latte and sat outside in the chilly fall night. It was perfect. We'd walked our three mile route, up and down hills and all around the neighborhood. We were feeling good. Our coffee was the perfect non-guilty treat at the end of a long work week.

We headed back toward home, talking softly since it was almost midnight. As we walked into the gates of our sub-division, we saw four kids running down the block laughing and back toward the party. I smiled and pointed them out to Dave. We jokingly wondered if their neighbors would be calling the cops about the noise since it was getting so late. Then we rounded the corner of our block and saw our front yard....

The little jerks had been busy. They had toilet papered our magnolia tree and our front lawn. The pale paper streamers glowed a ghostly white in the night against the glossy black of the magnolia leaves.

I was pissed. Now, most of you who know me well, know that it takes a lot to get me mad. I am not a hot head. I do not fly off the handle easily. I'm a nice person, but this was too much. I took a deep breath and embraced my boiling, bubbling anger. I told Dave I was going over there and I'm going to make them clean it up. I don't think he really thought I would accomplish much, but I started to march back down the road toward the now hated party house. Dave had no choice but to follow in my wake. It was either follow me or let me face the hoard of kids all alone, and he was too much of a gentleman to do that. I told him to get out his cell and dial 911 but to wait and see if I had any problems.

I marched up to the house, husband, and baby in stroller all in tow. It's midnight and all good feelings are gone. I'm cold, tired and mad. The little pricks were going to clean up the mess they made or I was calling the cops. I start knocking on the door. No one answers. I start ringing the door bell. Still no answer, although I can see heads peeking at me from behind curtains and whispered conversations ensuing. So I start yelling at the top of my lungs that if the kids responsible for the mess in my front yard don't get their asses outside that very minute I'm calling the cops on all of them. I told Dave to hold up his cell so they could all see it. He was wisely standing in the street guarding our innocent sleeping baby and holding up his cell phone above his head.

The door cracks open and a young man appears looking a little scared, other kids are visible inside on the stairway and in the hall. I asked him if he was the one who T.P.ed my front yard? He denied everything. He swore no one from their party was in our yard. Then I mentioned the fact that we saw two boys and two girls running from our house back to their house and if they didn't make them come out right away we were calling 911 and pressing vandalism charges.

The boy's face got really pale and he immediately started yelling for his friends to get outside now and clean up their mess or I was calling the cops on them. In fact all the kids at the party turned on the four and before I knew it, two boys and two girls were in my front yard cleaning up the six pack of extra strength Scott tissue that they'd thrown on our tree, our bushes and in our flower bed. In fact, I insisted they climb the tree in the dark and retrieve copious amounts of white paper from the branches above my lawn. They cleaned it up, every last bit of paper was removed and I thanked them sarcastically for their efforts to clean up their mess. Ughhhh!!!! Teenagers!!! Then, they apologized and called me ma'am.

That's when I realized that I was officially a grownup. It was the most depressing fact of the whole evening. Of course, my husband looked at me with a new found respect. I faced down a whole group of partying teenagers and won. In doing so, I lost the rest of my youth. No more prank calls, cow tipping, t. p.ing the neighbors house or other teenaged activities for me because... I'm all grown up now.