Our afternoon trip to Lowe's was going to be a simple one. I wanted to buy two things, a mailbox and post and towel bars for the bathrooms. I went straight to the bathroom supplies and found some really elegant and modern looking chrome and brass towel bars. I thought carefully about how many I needed and how long they needed to be. For the guest bath, I got a 24 inch rod, an 18 inch rod and one shaped like a C for hand towels. For the masterbath I got one 24 inch rod, a C shaped rod for the hand towels, and a bath towel hook to go near the shower. I wasn't quite sure if I really needed a 24 inch rod for the master bath, so after we bought everything else, we headed over to the house to measure.

As I turned down our street, approaching the drive way, I saw a black teenage male climbing out of the third bedroom window, and I noticed that all the shades in the house had been pulled. We had been at the house the night before and the shades are never down. This is to discourage vandals form entering the house. I drove on past the house and circled back to see several bodies entering the house through the garage. My husband, being the macho man that he is, jumped out and headed up the drive way and went inside. The people in the house scattered. Jeff came out, looking pissed. He told me to come inside and check things out.

As I walked in I was horrified! Some little heathen children had been setting firecrackers off in the house and vandalizing the place. There were burn holes in the carpet in the great room, singe marks in the formal dining room,  trash, burned up black cats and soot everywhere. The air conditioning was on 60. The master bedroom was trashed, loose coins were lying on the floor, along with bottle caps and firecrackers. The bathroom was filthy, puddles of urine on the floor, soot everywhere and something that looked like feces. I felt my blood pressure rising.

I drove up to the model home at the front of our community and ran in, letting the agent know that the house had been vandalized and that we believed that the culprits had locked themselves in one of the bedrooms.         (but they foolishly thought my husband and I had both left the house) She said she was on her way. I stepped outside to see a black teenage boy looking at my car, and then he took off running. Evidently he ran to warn his friends that I had told the agent that the house had been vandalized, assuming they were still in there. When I pulled up in the driveway, my husband had apprehended two white young teenage boy. He said they appeared from the other end of the house and caught them leaving. Then appeared the black teenage boy mouthing off at us, saying they didn't do anything, but that two other boys did.(they escaped through one of the back doors)

I thought Jeff was going to mop the floor with them, but the agent showed up and was trying to see what all had been damaged. We discovered that the floors in the guest bathroom were totally ruined, burned down to the slab. It appeared that these heathens had tried to flush lit bottlerockets down the commode. There were soot marks in the basin, a hole in the wall, and an assortment of fired firecrackers all over the bathroom. The other three bedrooms were trashed as well, and the third room it looks like their is human feces on the floor. I didn't get to close to know for sure. Next we toured the kitchen, where we felt a tremendous amount of heat, the gas oven was on 450 and a burner on low. Firecrackers and burn marks all over the floor in there too. We assumed they were lighting the firecrackers from the flame.

It took over three hours for the police to show up. During that time the boys were trying to convince us to let them go. One of the white boys said I was only treating them that way because of the way they were dressed, then the black boy got in my face and said it was because he was black.  I told him that if he didn't sit his ass down I was going to wipe the floor with it. Jeff was outside with Wild Child, so I stayed inside lecturing them about being leaders and not followers(they kept insisting they didn't do it but their friends), why it is wrong to desecrate other people's property, and why they better straighten out now before they end up in more serious trouble. I also lied to them that if they were lying they would get caught because they would take fingerprints and check the DNA in the feces and urine and they might as well confess. I made that three hour wait hell for those heathens. One of the neighbors walked over and asked what was going on, and when I had my back turn the two white scrawny ones tried to escape, I started screaming that I was going to tackle them if they didn't sit their rumps down.

My impression of these children was that they were stupid. Stupid for committing the crimes, but stupid because whatever came out of their mouths was incriminating. The excuses they gave for why they were in the house were lame, the reasons they gave for why we should let them go and not tell their parents bordered on pitiful, and the truth would have sounded better than the lies proceeding out of their mouths. Most of the time I was laughing at them, telling them that I was the master bullshitter, and that they were stupid.

Finally one police officer showed up. I gave him a tour, and to say he was a little outraged would be an understatement. He reamed those kids out. He was badgering them, asking them what the hell they thought they were doing, threatening to take them to the youth center. (I requested that they not be taken to the youth center but taken to their parents because these scrawny kids wouldn't have survived one night in our county youth facility.) As they got in the back of the police car they were completely silent, my husband commented "The next time you won't be so lucky." I agree.

Back to Journey and Destination

Last night I watched a really good movie: A Simple Plan

Nine more days until we close on our new house.