The other day I drove past the street I used to live on. It's not hard to do since I now live on the next street over. Normally I don't look down to the end of that road to bear witness to what was once our dream house, but this time I fell victim to the sting of nostalgia. I thought I could look at it without being phased but that wasn't the case. Not when my eyes began to BURN at the sight of the newly painted exterior! The new owners decided to commit a crime against nature and felt that a slightly lighter shade of mud was better!!!! From a pretty slate gray/blue to pale shit. NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
I had to take a closer look just to make sure the horror was real yet when I tried a band of sweaty, disrespectful, little skateboarding punks formed an formidable human gate that wasn't about to open anytime soon. I had seen them all before and figured that once I took off my sunglasses they would recognize me and scatter like flies out of fear that I might mention their antics to their moms, but it wasn't that easy. They were a tough bunch. There was the little one who used to try to run over my boys with his big wheel when they were all preschoolers. (His parents never bothered to keep an eye on him when he was playing outside and so therefore he became my problem on a daily basis.) A couple of the others would routinely jump off the seven foot concrete wall at the bus stop in an attempt to land and take down the speeding sign below. And the new kid, hell I knew him by name already as I had the privilege of sending him to the principal's office after his multiple verbal attacks on the fat girl in his class. (Yeah, he picked the wrong substitute to try to get away with that shit on!)
Try as I might to out maneuver my opponents it was nearly impossible. My strategy was to continue coasting around the cul de sac at 5mph with a polite tap of my horn to assure them I wasn't backing down, but they weren't budging. They were highly skilled at feigning deafness at loud, ear piercing sounds causing me to come to a complete stop before they would consider a truce. Then, after waiting unnecessarily for a good extra minute, my badass Honda accord proved too much of a force to be reckoned with and they grudgingly meandered a few feet closer to the curb.
It was only at this point could I really see what used to be our home. Now there were palm trees in place of the roses, a big screen tv in the bonus room window where our Christmas tree used to shine at night, and a startling blood red door where there once was a welcoming periwinkle blue front. As much as it pained me to see these changes, I took some comfort in knowing that at least on our street, my boys didn't hang out with kids like this. Brats who felt the street was made solely as their own private playground and who shot dirty glances at anyone who made them temporarily give up an inch. There's even talk of there being older teenage boys around here breaking into and then trashing some of the foreclosed homes in the neighborhood too.
I know kids are rebellious and boys in particular can be aggressive, but it's influences like these that make me wonder just what's in store for my kids and if they would be better off living anywhere but here. I'm praying that lemonade stands, playing catch, and water balloon wars don't evolve into scenarios like the ones chronicled in this song ...
YouTube - Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks
No comments:
Post a Comment