AND STAY OUTTA THE YARD!
I have become the crotchety “hey you kids get off my lawn!” guy.
There’s a charter school in the warehouse/party space/bane of my existence thing across the alley from my little house, now. The kids from it often go and sit on my parents’ front wall in the afternoons, presumably after school lets out and before their parents come to collect them. I can often hear them clearly at my house as they get up to rowdy kid shenanigans, but it’s even worse over here at Mom and Dad’s. They sit out there for almost an hour, sometimes, and it can be maddening to try to get anything done during that time. The noise is impressive. Last Friday, I thought about telling them to go away, but didn’t. Today, one or more of them amused her/himself by shouting obscenities for several minutes without cease. It was, not surprisingly, especially difficult to concentrate on writing through that.
So I stepped out on the porch, barefoot and in old jeans and a t-shirt, hair in a messy knot at the back of my head, glasses no doubt askew, and shouted:
“Hey! If you kids are going to shout obscenities at the top of your lungs, you need to GET OFF MY WALL!”
They looked at me nervously, and two of them stood up.
“I mean it,” I yelled. “This is private property. I don’t care if you sit there quietly after school, but this NOISE has got to stop!”
They stared.
“GO.”
“It was her,” one of the boys, baby-faced, possibly twelve years old, said, pointing at a girl with long, dark hair. “She was the one yelling. If she -”
“I don’t care WHO was yelling, you all need to GO.” I pointed dramatically, and they started moving.
“You can try again when you have some manners!” I called after their sullenly retreating backs.
Goodness. I can be such a mean grown-up.
Although, I did almost the same thing the other night to a bunch of college students (sitting on the wall right in front of the house, talking loudly, at ELEVEN AT NIGHT. Do people have no sense?), so I think I can conclude that my crotchety tendencies are brought out by obnoxious noise, and not by some strange jealousy for childish exuberance.
There’s a charter school in the warehouse/party space/bane of my existence thing across the alley from my little house, now. The kids from it often go and sit on my parents’ front wall in the afternoons, presumably after school lets out and before their parents come to collect them. I can often hear them clearly at my house as they get up to rowdy kid shenanigans, but it’s even worse over here at Mom and Dad’s. They sit out there for almost an hour, sometimes, and it can be maddening to try to get anything done during that time. The noise is impressive. Last Friday, I thought about telling them to go away, but didn’t. Today, one or more of them amused her/himself by shouting obscenities for several minutes without cease. It was, not surprisingly, especially difficult to concentrate on writing through that.
So I stepped out on the porch, barefoot and in old jeans and a t-shirt, hair in a messy knot at the back of my head, glasses no doubt askew, and shouted:
“Hey! If you kids are going to shout obscenities at the top of your lungs, you need to GET OFF MY WALL!”
They looked at me nervously, and two of them stood up.
“I mean it,” I yelled. “This is private property. I don’t care if you sit there quietly after school, but this NOISE has got to stop!”
They stared.
“GO.”
“It was her,” one of the boys, baby-faced, possibly twelve years old, said, pointing at a girl with long, dark hair. “She was the one yelling. If she -”
“I don’t care WHO was yelling, you all need to GO.” I pointed dramatically, and they started moving.
“You can try again when you have some manners!” I called after their sullenly retreating backs.
Goodness. I can be such a mean grown-up.
Although, I did almost the same thing the other night to a bunch of college students (sitting on the wall right in front of the house, talking loudly, at ELEVEN AT NIGHT. Do people have no sense?), so I think I can conclude that my crotchety tendencies are brought out by obnoxious noise, and not by some strange jealousy for childish exuberance.