Stupid Kid

This morning, I have the day off and I take the girls to daycare so Heather doesn't have to hassle with it. As I'm leaving, I notice a few of the mailboxes in our neighborhood, including the "Tard's" mailbox have been "tagged." Meaning, they have been spray painted. All of the mailboxes in our neighborhood are brick, so there is a lot of area to paint. The three that I drive past have "13", "Will and Slocomb" and "Fuck Me" written on them. Great. Some little paint happy bastards drove through my neighborhood last night. As I'm driving out, I look in the rear view at my mailbox and there is nothing on it. After I took the girls to daycare, I came in the other entrance to the neighborhood to see the other side of my mailbox that I couldn't see earlier. Sure enough, there was white paint on it. I was the proud owner of a tag that said "19 1/2" on my mailbox. WTF??

When I got in, I called my cousin, who is a Sheriff's Deputy in my county. I told him what had happened and asked who I needed to call. I wasn't expecting anything to happen, I just wanted it to go on record, plus, if there was a rash of them going around town, it would just be another charge to throw on them if they ever got caught. Plus, I wanted to let them know that if I caught the little bastard in my yard again, I'd beat the ever-luvin' shit out of him and leave him for dead in the middle of the road. He told me that a lot of cars had been spray-painted over the last few weeks and I was probably lucky they only got my mailbox. He gave me the non-emergency number to call and I called them.

About 10 minutes later there was a knock on my door. It was actually my sister's brother-in-law (her husband's sister's husband; Greg) who is also a Sheriff's deputy, that got sent to the house. He got all my info and everything I knew about what had happened. Then, he walked down the street to write down each thing that was written on a mailbox. I went back in the house while this was happening. I glanced out one time and noticed a lady talking to him. Thinking nothing of it, I sat down to watch this week's episode of "Big Break: Prince Edward Island." About 10 minutes into it, my doorbell rang. It was Greg and a teen-aged boy. Greg said the boy had something he wanted to tell me. I figured he saw who did it and was going to tell me. "Mr. Hall, my name is (name withheld) and I'm the one that spray painted your mailbox." For the second time in less than an hour I'm going: "WTF???" I was dumbfounded. Come to find out, the lady I saw talking to Greg earlier was this kid's mother and she was telling him that her son had tagged the mailboxes and he was coming out to talk to him. Greg and I talked to him for awhile. He reasoning was that he got "super bored" last night and was walking around and just decided to do it. He thought it would wash off in the rain and didn't think he was doing any harm. First off, it's enamel spray paint on brick. It ain't gonna wash off. Second, you are writing on people's property and you think you aren't doing any harm?? He said he didn't think about his actions affecting my kids. I told him he wasn't effecting my kids in the least, but e was affecting the entire neighbor by doing this. Now, everyone thinks the neighborhood isn't safe and has thugs riding through it or worse, living in here now. There was about 10 minutes of talking. We asked what the things on te mailboxes meant. He said they didn't really mean anything. It was just wat come to mind when he sprayed. There was something about his story that never did settle right with me. I don't know if there were others with him and he was hiding that or what, but there was something "off" about it. I never did put my finger on it. He said he was trying to join the Air Force (his dad is in the Air Force) and he really didn't want a record. I told him I wouldn't do anything right now, but I wanted my mailbox fixed. He said he was getting with his parents and they were going to figure out a way to get the paint off all the mailboxes. It's night time now and my mailbox is still painted. I'll give him a week and then I'm going to his parents and tell them either my mailbox get fixed or I'll get with the other 4 homeowners to file charges. That will put his Air Force dreams in a bit of a bind.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not out screw the kid. We've all done stupid stuff when we were younger. Hopefully, you learn from them and become a better person in the long run. But, if he says he's going fix what he screwed up, then he better stick to his word. If he doesn't fix it and no one does anything about it, then he'll never learn. He'll just go about his merry way thinking he do whatever he wants without any recourse. I personally don't want someone like that in my Air Force.

We'll see what happens and, of course, I'll update here.

Stupid Kid.