So I’m standing at my kitchen sink not ten minutes ago, washing the pan I used to make my scrambled eggs this morning, and I see a group of teenagers coming down the sidewalk towards my house. Initially, I didn’t take too much notice of them. The high school just let out, so they’re on their way home, although I did wonder why I couldn’t remember ever having seen this particular crew before. I’m sure I would have remembered, especially the girls in their heavy black eyeliner and dyed, straight black hair and black clothes and heavy boots (that goth look that always makes me want to yell “Wash your face!” and “Try pink! It would look great with your pasty white skin!”). Anyway, I look back down at my crusty pan and start scrubbing away but look up again when I realize my dogs had not started barking. They bark at EVERYBODY who walks by my house as if Satan had just materialized in front of them. I live on a corner, so they run along the fence, following the passer-by, barking their fucking heads off. They weren’t doing that because the kids had stopped at the corner of my fence, right by my driveway. “Hmm,” I thought. “I wonder what they’re up to?” But before that thought could completely run through my head, I see one of the girls lift a bowl to her lips and hold a lighter to it, while saying something to her friend.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” I said. Out loud. To myself. Then I went to the back door and opened it quietly and that’s when the dogs started barking. One kid said something to the girl with the bowl and she lowered it.
“You might want to try being a little more sly with that,” I said. “What are you thinkin’?”
One of the boys says, “It’s just tobacco!”
“Sure it is,” I said. “You think you kids invented that stuff? Doesn’t it occur to you that some adults might be around who know what you’re doing? You’re standing on a sidewalk in broad daylight!”
“It’s tobacco, ma’am!” (Argh. I hate being called ma’am. Especially by someone I’m busting for smoking pot on the sidewalk outside my house at 3:15 in the fucking afternoon.)
Meanwhile, they’ve resumed walking and now they are about even with me where I stand on my back porch. “Do yourself a favor,” I say. “Get your head out of your ass and smoke that at home, okay?”
“Okay! Bye!” they call, giggling.
How fucking stupid can you be? I remember doing some pretty stupid things when I was a teenager. Maybe. Okay, we did things like stop in the middle of the street, and then we’d all get out of the car and cop a squat on someone’s front lawn. There’d be six or seven girls scattered, squatting and peeing and giggling, our car radio blaring. It’s like we didn’t think anything existed but us. And we were always so shocked to get busted for stuff. We honestly thought that, what? Adults wouldn’t notice? Wouldn’t do anything? Didn’t know what a drunk or stoned person looked like? Didn’t know what pot smelled like? Couldn’t recognize that particular way you have to hold a lighter on it’s side in order to put spark to fragrant weed? What the hell?
Now, I could have been a real bitch and called the police and really confronted them and made them wait there for the police and made a big old scene and all that, but then I’d get rocks thrown through my window. It IS occurring to me now that I could have simply CONFISCATED their “tobacco.” But that probably would have brought me a little more trouble than it’s worth. Plus, teenagers smoke schwag. I just wanted to let them know they were seen. That they are not invisible. And to let them know they are incredibly STUPID.
So, what would you have done? Would you have called the police? Would you have said anything different than I did? Would you have invited them up on your porch and asked for a hit and offered them a beer? Would you have followed them in your car to see where they live? Would you have bothered to say anything to them at all?
I would have went out there and confiscated their weed, fed them to my dogs, sat back, got high, listened to Jack Johnson, and laughed to myself about how great life is.
Did you actually smell it Viki? I ask, not because I doubt it was drugs, but because I’m begining to doubt it was pot. In the past two weeks I’ve had three severe cardiac reactions in the ED in kids under twenty. All three were smoking meth.
You know what Al? I’m not sure it was pot. Although I’m fairly certain that these kids wouldn’t be stupid enough to smoke meth while standing on my driveway at 3:15 in the afternoon. I’m beginning to think it may have been tobacco and they were just trying to fuck with people.
If it WAS meth, that’d really freak me out.
I would have stolen their meth too…just for the record.
Be a bitch! Just for the blogging material!
i think i would of just, said something to them and then left it alone.. (i think)
I think i would of just minded my own business.. and would of probably let someone else handle it..
Sharrell-You’re obviously not too sure about your own response. I pretty much did just that. I said something and I left it alone. If I”d wanted to make a stink, I’d have called the police.
And Noodles? I don’t care where I’ve been in my llife. If someone is standing on my fucking driveway, it is my business. Who else is going to handle it? These kids stopped in my DRIVEWAY to stop and smoke pot in broad daylight. It IS MY BUSINESS. But thanks for stopping by and commnting. I do appreciate it.
Goth kids are usually pretty harmless. I would have probably done what you did. Gang bangers are a different story. I don’t want to deal with tagging or broken car windows.
If they keep doing it, you might want to call the school. The principal at my school is pretty responsive to neighborhood complaints and almost all high schools, certainly all CPS schools have police in the building.
fired a couple of rounds into the air.
would that be weird?
lol
BWAHAHAHAHA! Awesome. I wouldn’t have gotten ‘em in trouble because I was kind of a stupid kid. And teenager. And college student. And early adult. Anyway, I probably would have told them they had to share. And then when they got over their initial shock and passed me the bowl, I’d have been like, “Meh, nevermind.” Paranoia, ya know? I used to be a big pothead until that day when I smoked and thought everyone was after me.
Thanks for the comment on my site.
Loved this entry.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve peed on someone’s lawn.
I couldn’t bear to bust them, because it’d be like karma, you know?