Front-Yard Shenanigans

An outside noise woke me last night (no, not the doorbell…very funny). I’ve learned over the years that it’s prudent to check unknown outside noises. Our front yard is a magnet for teens with time on their hands.

Last night there were no errant teens in sight, so I didn’t have to empty the yard of unwanted items or undo clever rearrangements of holiday decorations. The latter because we’re not celebrating any holidays this week. I’m sure there are holidays being celebrated, but I didn’t buy my calendar from Hallmark this year.

Our house, boat and cars have been egged various times. Although, had we followed CC&R codes, our boat wouldn’t have been in our driveway, without a cover, ripe for raw eggs. Hmmm….maybe the CC&R patrol was making a point.

Our cars have also been hit by paint balls, and we’ve been forked twice. The first time we were forked, my daughter was in kindergarten. She came in to wake me and looked out our bedroom window.

“Look mommy, someone made words with forks. It says F-O-R-K…I don't know what the last letter is.”

The next few minutes were a blur of activity—I swooped up my daughter, telling her I couldn’t read the last letter either and told my oldest son to get dressed and de-fork our yard ASAP.

When it happened a second time, I was impressed by the moxi it took to stand in our yard and painstakingly spell out “fork u” with plastic forks. We’re talking about big letters and a lot of forks. We live on a corner by a streetlight, we keep our outside lights on—we’re not an easy target, and yet, we so are…

We’ve also awakened to inappropriate configurations of our holiday reindeer. If metal reindeer could procreate, we’d have a herd by now. Our neighbors particularly enjoy the reindeer goings on—only so many fornication jokes are truly funny though….really.

The latest target is our flagpole. I have to admit that this one annoys me—even teens should know where to draw the line regarding respect.

The first time they chose the flagpole, I heard a tinny sound every time I went out front. That evening I finally looked up, after many, many cars had driven by our house—sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake. Hanging with our flag, were beer cans and a pair of boxers—eeeew! If I have to choose between naked teens or plastic forks in my front yard, I’ll take the forks, thank you very much.

The following weekend, our soccer goal was flying with the flag—it’s a big goal, this was no easy task. So the flag came down, and we’ve been keeping vigilant watch. I’m waiting for the CC&R patrol to complain that we’re not flying a flag, then I’m going to find out where they live and fork them.

We’re not the only targets in our neighborhood; we’re just the easiest in terms of get-away routes and opportunity. We tend to decorate for every holiday and are the only ones on our block with a flag pole. I don’t anticipate leaving this house anytime soon, so I’m thinking we need to buck up and realize we’re forked.