No, it was not Colonel Mustard in the hallway with a knife. It was me talking with my wife in the kitchen, drinking an ice cold beverage, after a long day at work. In the middle of our nice conversation, we were startled to hear a huge explosion and the sound of broken, shattering glass in the backyard. Someone had thrown an object over the back wall and had hit our bay window glass. My wife and I raced out the back door and looked over the back wall into the night with no sound or sight of anyone around. I decided to jump over the wall and my son takes off out the front door and races down the back way to the park to cut anyone off at the pass. As I stared into the darkness of night, I used a night vision technique I learned in the military to spy out any movement, I still saw no one. Moving slowly up the path I spooked two guilty kids hiding in the saltbush.
Lets face it, if I had called 911, I would have waited for three hours before a policeman showed up and the to top it all off, the police would have never found the young culprits. Although, I don’t necessarily advocate taking the law into ones own hands, it was the right decision in this case.
It had been a number of years and forty pounds since my body felt the need and urge to sprint, but thanks to muscle memory, I tore off after the two kids. I caught one of the boys by grabbing him by his collar, and then watched the other vandal disappear into his house, up the road from my home. Using a method of strategic questioning I gathered the names of the two boys and the location of their homes.
James and Steven are the boy’s names. The boy’s lied like the devil himself. Blatant lies and rotten attitude describes the busted duo. Both James and Steven quickly implicated the other one in the crime and each claimed the other one threw the bottles. Two bottles filled with trapped water. The boys were cocky and disrespectful. When asked why they decided to attack my home with an unprovoked, premeditated burst of vandalism, they had no response. What did the boys have to gain, but a royal booty kicking? This was a great opportunity to open up a “Can-of-whoop-buns…but, I did not.
In my opinion, it won’t be long until these two make a visit to the D-Home (Detention Center). After speaking with each of their moms in regards to the incident, my son brought up a second incident these young boys were involved in. It turns out these are the same two juvenile delinquents that tried to break into my son’s car a few weeks back. Strike-one and strike-two are thrown and the police were not involved. If or when strike-three occurs the boys will receive their due. Everyone I speak with in regards to this incident expresses the same theme. All say, “I am stupid” for giving the boys another chance. Am I stupid? I forgive them for making a stupid decision.
Take Away: In hindsight, James and Steven never even apologized. The boys were not sorry for their actions, they were sorry they got caught. The boy's moms were both embarrassed and sorry, but the boys were not. What is society coming to? Where has our collective social conscience gone?
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