This actually happened a few weeks ago, but I’m finally not angry enough to write about it!
I like change, but I also like routine. I especially like routine when things are busy – I know what to expect, I can make wise decisions and I can keep myself on schedule.
Mornings, in particular, are a big routine time for me. I have my mornings timed down to the minute, from how long I have to go on a run to how extensive a breakfast I can make to what time I need to leave the house to catch my favorite train to work.
So you can imagine that I did not appreciate this type of change:
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| Starred for your protection from hand-drawn naughty bits and words |
That’s right: graffiti on my car.
It’s juvenile graffiti, and obviously drawn by a girl (the heart after the slightly-naughty word kind of gives that away). But irritating nevertheless.
Irritating because:
- I had to go back inside to get glass cleaner to remove it before driving to the train station. Call me crazy, but I wasn’t eager to drive my 10 minute car commute with a body part (and descriptive text) drawn right next to my face.
- It’s a small step from graffiti to having your house toilet papered…or egged.
- We live in too nice of a neighborhood to put up with this type of stuff.
- Teenagers obviously need to get their tushies back to school because they’ve officially run out of more productive things to do during the summer.
So I was irritated…and then angry. I may or may not have given The Boy an earful about it.
While I was busy getting irritated, The Boy was busy being smart.
That evening, he casually asked our neighbor (who has had teenagers hanging out at her house nearly 24/7 this summer, including a gaggle of girls) if she’d seen teens out late at night.
When she mentioned that her daughter, and her daughter’s friends had been out way past curfew the night before, The Boy told her what had happened.
Then here’s the brilliance of The Boy: The wife probably would have made a very strong implication that said daughter was very very naughty. But not The Boy.
He merely suggested that our neighbor ask her daughter if she’d seen any mischief, because we planned to start monitoring and would prosecute the next time anything happened.
Subtle. But also effective.
Our car has been really clean for the past few weeks.