Don’t Mess with My House

A quick disclaimer: this is Chris writing this post.

Working from home has its pros and cons.  Not being with your co-workers – and having minimal interaction with others – can get kind of boring after awhile.  Today was different however.  Today working from home did have interaction – and a slightly adventurous twist.

I’m sitting in the office working away on the computer when I hear a “bam” somewhere in the house.  A second later, another “bam”.  I look out the window to see three middle school kids throwing things at my house!  What the heck!  I ran to the door and half slipped my flip-flops on as they started running off.  I tore off after them.

Now a couple of things are going through my head.  Why in the world did these little punks choose my house to throw things at?  Did it cause any damage?  How fast can they run?  I should be faster, right?  But I’m wearing flip-flops.  Can I run fast enough in flip-flops?  What am I going to do if I catch them?  Should I tackle one of them if I have to?

But then I had a would be embarrassing moment had anyone else been watching.  As I ran up to the sidewalk I tripped on my flip-flops and my body started getting in front of my feet.  I tried to pull out of it but failed.  Scraaaape.  I put my hands out to break my fall and realized later that I scraped a good piece of flesh off the palm of my hand.  I also scraped my hip, knee, and foot but not so bad.  But I didn’t have time to focus on that.  I had 3 misfits to run down.  And now that I had the internal pride-squelcher of tripping on the sidewalk I had to get them.  So I pop up and keep running.

I chased them down the sidewalk and around some trees.  They’re about 50 ft in front of me but I’m closing in.  I’m kind of surprised that I’m catching them, but then, how fast should middle school kids be?  But at the same time, I’m starting to feel a little winded.  I’m not exactly the workout king or anything so a full-out sprint for any prolonged duration wasn’t going to be easy.  But I got a break.

One of the three kids tripped on some roots and uneven ground and fell down.  I caught up to him and grabbed his arm.  His two friends were a few steps ahead but decided to come back and not abandon him – a noble move.

From that point on they were some of the most respectful kids I have ever met.  I briefly scolded them for throwing things at my house and then asked them questions like their names, why they were throwing things, etc.  It turns out that they were just throwing water balloons (not as bad).  Why?  Because they were bored.  They thought the girl that used to live here still lived here, and they were getting her back for toilet papering one of their houses.  I made them give me their names and phone numbers.  I called each of their parents but only got ahold of one (I left messages with the others).  I explained what happened to the one kid’s dad and asked him if he wanted to come pick them up.  The kids were explaining to me that they didn’t intend to cause any damage and that one of them didn’t even throw any balloons at my house.  That didn’t matter to me.  Their dad came to get them, apologized, and just had that I’m-not-a-happy-dad attitude.

So I won!  Don’t think you can throw things at my house and get away with it.  I’ll hunt you down.  And then I’ll think I’m really cool because I got some middle school kids in trouble.