Evil Wayne

I don't think it would be so wise to go into the details. Especially since actual police involvement hasn't been 100% rules out, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nobody engages in any further stupidity. As noted elsewhere, children bring with them a host of problems that you can never be fully prepared to deal with. But sometimes there's this peripheral bullshit that happens which has only has a tenuous attachment to your children and that has such a blind-siding effect.

For the past three weeks there's been an annoying, but harmless little issue recurring. But is suddenly took a turn for the worse when I sought to reach out and have it stopped. What I assumed would be a few backstage words to wise were completely met with hostility and a blatant threat that it would continue. Most of that I blame myself for. I had choices in how to handle it and I chose what I was hoping would be the most low-key avenue and that turned out to be wrong. Even then, we had hopes that it was all talk and it would just blow over. 

Not the case. So the annoying little issue recurs and I'm backed into an unfavorable corner of either calling the police or visiting parents in the middle of the night. Neither of these is pleasant. I really don't want to call the cops if I can avoid it. Some people throw that kind of threat around, but not me. Once you call the cops, there's no going back. Once you file a legitimate and legal complaint you make it official and then all this other stuff can start to come into play and things can turn sour real fast. But visiting parents in the night doesn't sound appealing at all. I have no idea what kind of reception I'm going to get. They could be people who will take offense that I even just showed up, never mind implicate their kid in something. 

In the end, I have to go to the parents. If I can head off something before it gets worse, before I am forced to call the police, so much the better. And if I get a bad reception, I do still have that option of calling the police, and at least I've tried. 

So at 9:30, I'm down the street ringing their doorbell. I hate this. I am so not the confrontational type. Luckily, they turn out to be willing to listen. They hear what I have to say and they appear to believe me. None of that "Not my kid" or "Prove it." bullshit. I know if a parent showed up at my door in the middle of the night, there would have to be some truth to it. They offer up that it will all be taken care of. I get the responses I feel I need to hear and they seem like good people. They'll talk to their kids and hopefully this is all said and done.

But I'm still a little concerned. Also noted elsewhere, kids are stupid. Dumb as posts, sometimes. And while I worry daily about work, bills and the freaking soaring price of gas, they tend to dwell on other things that seem important at the time. So I still have to keep an eye out for some dumb teenager who might be thinking that showing me he's an unintimidated tough-guy is the most important thing on his agenda. We're keeping our fingers crossed that it's all said and done. That the annoying little issue will just go away, because it's not actually worth all this trouble. But it has reached a point where I have made myself more than clear. I've had to stand outside and cautiously engage another set of parents over issues relating to it. Hopefully someone has enough brains to realize how stupid this is and they should let it go.