WHERE IS THE CONCH?!

I knew eventually I would become the crotchety old neighbour that small children would avoid because she is so grumpy. I didn't think I would be that woman at 30, but they forced my hand. For the rest of the post, just assume that "they" are a dozen or so 12-ish year old boys that insist on terrorizing our neighbourhood. Laugh if you will that I'm letting a gang of tween boys intimidate me, but the fact remains that they are a huge nuisance and I am out of patience. Was I young once? Of course. Did I have steam to blow off? Sure. Did I do it outside? No, I'm British. So I can empathize with the fact that they are kids and need to play, but our similarities seem to end there. You see, I have respect. I have parents who care about me. I grew up in a kid-friendly neighbourhood on a quiet street. And I know that if I get into a fight with a car, the car will always win. 

These hooligans-in-the-making insist on playing basketball at the end of the driveway of a house across the street - a relatively busy street every day after school for hours, the fact that they call it quits before 10 the only sign that they have parents at all. Don't get me wrong, it isn't the fact that they are playing basketball that makes me want to destroy them. It's the fact that every time I leave my house or come home to it, I have to wait for an excruciatingly long time for the game to clear. They continue plays - grabbing rebounds and shooting continuously until they sink a basket and even start new ones, all while painfully aware that a car is waiting to pass. While most are playing basketball, some are zooming around on skateboards. I can't balk at that, as I was a bit of a skateboarder groupie at 14. What I can complain about is the young man who bears an uncanny resemblance to Kevin from Mean Girls, who stopped his board directly in front of my car and stared me down for nearly 10 seconds before rolling his eyes and slowly rolling out of my way. A friend who lives on the street had the misfortune of realizing her phone was at home after having left her house, having to break up the game three times in as many minutes and he threw his arms in the air and yelled, "What are you DOING?!" angrily. They are belligerent and make it uncomfortable for me to take my wee family outside to play in front of our own house. There is so much bad language thrown around and heaven bless one of them who asked another to watch his language as the kids and I rolled up. The owner of the basketball hoop finally came out last week and told the boys that they were being loud. To which 'Kevin' responded, "Well YOU were being loud yesterday." Wow. The owner went on to explain that what he did on his own time was his business, but seeing that they are on the street with lots of people around, they should watch their language. Here's where an apology would usually be made, but the individuals we're dealing with simply asked the gentleman, "Do you smoke?" Outrageous.

They are out every day, most times is basketball but when it isn't, it's shooting one another with pellet guns. And if it was them only shooting each other, I wouldn't have much to complain about. But as it stands, they find it particularly entertaining to shoot at our garage. Sometimes they nominate someone to be a target and have him jump around in front of the garage door, and other times they sit at a house across the street and just see how far they can shoot from and still hit it. It's maddening. They divide into teams and slink down the street and hide on our doorsteps and behind our cars, making them targets as well. We have hundreds of pellets littering our front garden and filling the cracks in our driveway and even in our backyard. One of them had the sense to suggest they stop shooting the guns as we walked by one day with the kids, but they didn't show such restraint when they shot at Brandon on his way home from Home Teaching a family who'd had a window broken by a BB gun - hmm. He said he heard pellets pinging off lamp posts and garages immediately behind him as he walked down our street and that he saw the assailants hiding in bushes. Really, children?

Other activities for which they've chosen us to be unwitting participants include games like "How Many Times Can I Bounce a Basketball Off the Side of Someone's House Until They Come Out and Ask Me to Stop?" and the same game, substituting "basketball" for "tennis ball" and "side of the house" for "roof." I feel like we were the losers.

I've been advised to call the police, but don't want to be targeted even more if that's possible. I also want to be sensitive to the fact that at least one of these boys has a difficult home life, with a single mother who is high all the time and a father who only seems to visit with loud, obnoxious gifts. I may be calling the HOA, since every time I turn onto our street, which is the main drag for our association, my heart sinks when I see a swarm of kids blocking the road and I'm confident I'm not the only one who feels that way. I know it can't reflect well on our neighbourhood and I hope they can do something about it. Because the parents don't seem to care. It's like Lord of the Flies out here, people. And so far I haven't seen a conch.