Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 07:57:46 MDT From: Robyn Meta Herrington Subject: SUB:CONTEST:CORRECTION! You know, something got scrambled between Here and There. Apparently, some of the text of 'The Final Score's the One That Count's was missed. I'm posting again, with most hearty apologies. -- Robyn -- ------------------------------------------ The Final Score's the One That Counts I don't know I got such a reputation as a curmudgeon, but there it is, and I am, as far as the neighborhood is concerned. And Halloween is a rough time of year for me, when the little brats take out their childish vindictiveness on me. "Let's get Old Man Roberts!" they probably say. "He's a mean old fart and deserves it," they must tell each other. I get pretty tired of it all, the soaped windows, the toilet-papered trees, other peoples' smashed pumpkins on my driveway, and all their tedious pranks. After all the years of it, I grew weary of putting up with it, cleaning up after the little mommas' darlings. More than mere annoyance, the little buggers (and some of them not so little) had become meaner and more creative. I found my prize flowers trampled, intentionally I'm sure, and my poor cat abused, a remnant of a rope tied to her tail to which the Lord only knows what was attached - cans, firecrackers, or whatever. It was time to take action. I admit that I've done little to dissuade people of their apparent collective opinion of me. I am an old fart, or must seem that way at seventy-plus, when so many of my neighbors are so much younger. But I was in this neighborhood long before any of them, when mine was the only house on the road. And I'm a loner, by proclivity and by preference. Never had a wife. Don't want one. And I don't see the need or reason to engage in small talk that wastes my time. I keep my curtains closed most of the time, keeping myself to myself, and them out. The fence is for the same effect: I want my privacy and solitude. They have these buried wire "fences" to keep dogs inside your property (and I wish more of my neighbors had them!) but they still haven't invented a legal such fence to keep the little bastards out of your yard. When I was a kid we didn't do the things kids do nowadays. Maybe we did some of them, but at least we had the good taste to show remorse if we got caught. Kids today... Well, there's the problem. They have no remorse or sense at all. And their parents indulge them. Coddle them. It's as if the parents themselves never grew up, think the world's just made for them. It was past time to take action. They had to learn. I decorated my house up in grand style for Halloween. Two weeks before beggars' night, I spent over two hundred dollars at several stores for black and orange crepe paper and cardboard cut-outs of skeletons and black cats with arched backs for my doors and windows. My yard was virtually littered with Styrofoam tombstones, like a real grave yard. Every corner of the porch and street-side windows were strung with spray-on spider webs. I even put a plastic jack-o-lantern over my yard light, which I rarely keep lit, because it costs money to run those things, and since I am not out there, why light up the yard so the little vandals can see what they're doing? The coup de grace among my decorations was the pair of hand carved pumpkin jack-o-lanterns flanking my driveway. I placed one each of the twenty-pound monsters on the top of the brick walls leading up the driveway, and lit an authentic candle in each one. On my garage door I put more cardboard cut-outs and crepe paper, the enticement for the kids to come nearer, to take their best shot. I knew I was creating an "attractive nuisance," as it would be called if it ever went that far, but I figured that the kids had a chance to resist. I was counting on their nature not to resist. It didn't take long for the brats to attack. I was watching from under my porch when the pair of them snuck up the driveway. I gave them the benefit of doubt, and a chance to redeem themselves before... True to form, the little snots picked up both pumpkins and heaved them down on the driveway, smashing them to pieces. Then, bravely I have to admit, instead of running off right away, they ran up and tore the crepe paper from the garage and tied it around my little Japanese maple, trampling the garden beneath the tree in the process. Score: one to nothing, their favor. The next morning, before it was light out, I cleaned up the mess and replaced both the pumpkins and the crepe paper. The next door neighbor, from a few hundred yards down the road actually, stopped by later on her walk with her doggie (which proceeded to lift its leg and pee on my azalea bush) and commented on my "lovely decorations." "Ah, yes, well, it's for the kids, you know. Halloween's such a great time of year for them, and I'm looking forward to the little ones coming around..." She looked at me strangely, as if this were some neighbor she'd never known. She must have wondered what had brought about this change of heart in me. "You're only a kid once, you know," I told her, "and I remember how it was. How about you - all decorated up and ready for the little beggars, too?" Then the little mutt was lifting his leg again, peeing on my roses. Typical. Why do the dogs with the biggest bladders belong to the dumbest owners? Ah well, I thought to myself, at least it wasn't a Great Dane. I saw the two little vandals later that afternoon, walking up the road after the school bus let them off at the end of the road. I saw them look up the driveway at the restored crepe paper and cut-outs, and two new, wonderful, fat jack-o-lanterns where the old ones were. I could almost feel their evil joy at the prospect of another night's carousing, smashing pumpkins, when they should be at home, sitting at the kitchen table, doing homework until bed time. It's their parents' faults as much as theirs. It would be a hard lesson to learn, but a necessary one. I was under the porch again that night, ready and waiting for their return. About eight-thirty they came skulking back up the driveway, glancing this way and that, looking up at my windows for any sign of "The Old Fart." Again, I gave them a chance to mend their ways, but they sealed their own fates. One of them grabbed one pumpkin and the other got the other one, and they lobbed them like heavy basketballs into the air and snickered, "Oh man!" as they smashed on the concrete drive. I drew a bead on the nearest one with my old 22-Remington and got him between the eyes. Clean shot, just like the old days when I used to hunt ground hogs, squirrels, and other vermin. I was surprised at the quickness of his partner in crime, how fast the other brat turned to run. I winged the little shit, though, and before he could get away I crawled out of my hiding place and finished him off, too. Now, with their heads mounted up above my garage door, I don't expect I'll have much more trouble out of the neighborhood brats this Halloween. -------+++++++-------+++++++ +++++++-------+++++++------- Robyn Herrington Operations Manager, Microforms Services University of Calgary, MacKimmie Library Ph: (403)220-6903 http://www.ucalgary.ca/~rmherrin rmherrin@acs.ucalgary.ca -------+++++++-------+++++++--------------+++++++-------+++++++-------