I’m so sick of finding kindercrap in my yard! Of all the places I’ve lived in my life, there are the fewest kids in this neighborhood, which is wonderful. There are still kids, but none are my immediate neighbors and I hardly see or hear kids in the neighborhood. Yay! Still, there seems to be some kind of Bermuda Triangle effect that all this kiddie crap in a 4-block radius gets sucked into my yard! How the hell is that possible?! I’ve never had this problem anywhere else I’ve ever lived! Why MY yard?
Most of the times it’s balls of various shapes and sizes, but I’ve found all kinds of junk in my yard. I’ve taken to keeping anything I find and, if no one comes to claim it, it ends up donated to one of the thrift stores in town. I’m not a total ogre – I don’t sit at my window watching to see if a kid’s ball bounces into my yard and then bound out there and snatch it from the kid trying to retrieve it and say, “MINE NOW!” I know some breeder lurkers here would like to think that, but that’s not the case.
What actually happens is this: I will come home to find crap in my yard yet no kids are anywhere in sight. They just leave their stuff in my yard and go home. ????? I don’t get it! I can’t stand to have crap all over my yard and I shouldn’t have to! Still, because I’m not a total ogre, I usually ignore it for a while but if it’s still there the next time I go out, I put it in the “lost and found” box in my garage. I wait to see if anyone shows up to claim it, and if no does, I eventually empty the box at a local thrift store.
A couple of times kids have come to my door and politely asked if I’d seen their ball, and in those cases, I’ve given it back to them with a reminder to keep better track of their toys. After all, some other kid could have stolen their stuff and they’d never have gotten it back. They were lucky I was nice enough to hold it for them and return it when they asked.
Usually, though, the kids are so dumb they don’t even remember where they left the ball, so I never hear from them again. They just go home and demand their idiot parents buy them new toys. Apparently the idiot parents comply, or the kids would keep better track of their stuff!
A few weeks ago, a scooter started ending up in our yard every other day or so. Occasionally we’d find it in the street or someone else’s yard, but it seemed to be in our yard most often! Again, why MY yard? Worse, sometimes it was in my driveway, which was really inconvenient! If I’d had any idea which house the kid belonged to, I’d have gone and had a talk with the parents (who, I’m sure, wouldn’t have given a shit – they obviously weren’t paying attention). But I don’t know which houses have kids. The only people in the neighborhood who have been friendly with us are the ones without kids or the ones who were empty-nesters.
Like I already mentioned, I don’t see a lot of kids in the neighborhood, and I most certainly have not watched the few kids I’ve seen to find out which house they returned to. If I had, I’d probably be arrested for pedophilia or something. (”How dare you be watching my kid and stalking him!!”)
It really bothers me that these kids today have no respect for their stuff. They figure, “Eh, I’ll just leave my scooter (or other toys) just anywhere in the neighborhood. If it gets stolen, I don’t care. My mom will just buy me another!” Yea, I know this scooter is only worth about $25, but still! Take care of your stuff, kid!
It isn’t just the cheap stuff, either. My nephew recently told me a story about some kid at school leaving his PSP laying around. Nephew’s friend stole it, although, is it still “stealing” under the finders keepers rule? If you are dumb enough to leave something out in the open, it’s your own damn fault if someone else claims it. (In this case, the PSP did originally get back to the owner, don’t worry).
I’m not shocked that kids today have NO respect for their stuff, even something expensive like a PSP. Their parents spoil them so badly, buying them every gaming device, music device, digital camera and cell phone they point their little fingers at. I’m shocked. If I’d wanted expensive stuff like that, my parents would have told me to get a job! I can’t imagine my parents having spent upwards of $1500 on electronic crap for me when I was a kid, and I wouldn’t have expected them to. But then, I wasn’t a spoiled brat, either! I was recently talking to a gal who said she had to buy her kid a new iPod because he’d lost his, and I was blown away. It’s bad enough she bought him one in the first place, but buying a replacement after he hadn’t taken care of his first one? I’m speechless. If I’d lost anything when I was a kid, even a $5 cassette tape of my favorite band, my parents would have said, “You didn’t take care of it, so you have to pay for the replacement on your own.”
More importantly, why don’t these kids ever lose something good like an iPod in my yard? Why is it always junk?!
Anyway, after finding the scooter in our driveway yet again, a couple of weeks ago my husband said he’d had enough, and put it in the lost and found box. If a kid had shown up at our door and politely asked for it back and apologized, we’d have returned it after telling him to take better care of his shit and for the love of all that is holy, keep it the fuck out of my driveway! The last thing I need is to be backing out of the garage and run over it!
No kid ever showed up. I’m sure he just went home and said, “MOM! Get me another scooter! RIGHT NOW!” and she did.
So today there is probably a kid going into the DAV thrift store with his mother and for $5 he’ll walk out with a scooter and be so happy. Hopefully that kid will appreciate more than the last kid did. I certainly hope so.
I feel less sorry for parents these days when they cry broke, since they not only buy their kids everything they point at, including overpriced shit, but then pay to keep replacing all their shit when they don’t take care of it. Don’t even get me started on the parents who spoil their brats who are 16+ and old enough to get a job and buy their own shit.
Lurking parents: teach your kids to take better care of their shit and keep it out of our yards. I don’t want to be picking up after your kids. That’s YOUR job. I would much rather they kept their balls and scooters and miscellaneous other crapola so I didn’t have to waste a trip to the thrift store every couple of months with a box full of their junk from my yard!