The Christmas Spirit

This morning I was packing the sardines in the can, er van, and I heard a ridiculous amount of ruckus outside. I thought it was the rowdy neighbor kids again and didn't think much of it. But when I opened the garage door to pull out, it got louder and I saw a man standing outside my neighbor's (across the street) door. I rolled down the window out of curiosity, but then my ears started burning at the f-bomb he dropped while pounding murderously on the door with his fists.

I freaked a little and quickly pulled out, cranked up the christmas music to protect my children's innocent ears, and high-tailed it down the block (quickly closing the garage door lest he come my way??? I don't know, I was a little panicked). I got about a block away when my conscience kicked in. What if that guy does something to hurt those people in there? What if he's high or drunk? I checked to see that we had a minute to spare so Kolbi wouldn't be late, flipped around and casually drove back down my own street (telling the kids NOT to look at the bad man and to pay attention to the lovely songs) so I could get my neighbor's address. Then I drove back down the cul-de-sac with the aire of "I don't live here, I'm not paying any attention to the obscenely angry little man on the porch, I'm just lost and looking for an address. Hmm, hmm, hmm (I'd whistle casually if I could, but instead I hummed, see?)."

On our way out, the guy paused in his tirade and glanced over at us. Jonah started wigging in the back seat, "Mom, Aiden looked at the guy! He saw Aiden looking at him!" I calmly reassured him and drove on all casual-like. Around the corner and out of ear-shot though, I flipped open the phone and called the police (luckily I had a rare moment of fore-sight about a year back and programmed the # into my phone). I reported the guy, but was too shaken up and had tried too hard to be casual that I didn't have a very good description to give the coppers. "Um, he was caucasian, I think. He had on a sweater. Green I think. He had short hair and maybe jeans?" Brilliant and incredibly helpful eh? Oh, and did I want to leave my name and phone number? Let me think about this . . . Um, a crazy guy is yelling outside my neighbor's door, he saw me drive past, possibly saw where I live, and I watched CSI last night about a bunch of crooked cops. What if he's a crooked cop too and has access to the records of who calls in the bad guys! (Paranoid much? just a wee bit) "No, thank you!" I politely declined. Anyhoo, we went on our merry little way and dropped Kolbi off at school.

When we got back, a cop car pulled into our neighborhood just before us and pulled up to our neighbor's house. Of course the guy was gone. I pulled (once again very casually, cause Casual is my middle name right?) into the garage, but didn't shut it. The kids unbuckled and lined up at the back window like a little row of pink peas to observe the cop get out and knock on the door. No one answered and I began to think, "Well, maybe no one was home anyways. No harm in being cautious though right?" After what seemed like a long time, a woman with a baby on her hip and toddler at her side, opened the door. It was hard to tell, but she seemed a bit frantic and suddenly I was so relieved that I had called in reinforcements. What if those were my babies? What would I do if some crazy person was pounding murderously at my door? Why didn't SHE call the cops?

The show was pretty much over, I got the kids out of the car and closed the garage door just as a second cop car pulled up. I don't know what happened after that. But I ended up having a very enlightening and scary discussion with Jonah when he asked,

"What bad word was he saying Mom?"

"I'm not going to repeat it son."

"Was it the f-word?"

Wigging a little bit, I asked, "How do you know what the f-word is?"

"Is it the f-word I say sometimes?" WHAT??!!??

Then I remembered that a few weeks back he kept singing one of his little made-up, nonsense-word songs. He kept saying "fok" as just another nonsense-word, but is sounded so much like the bad word it made my ears burn every time and I dis-allowed him from saying that word anymore. Ah! Ok, now I get it!

"Yes honey, that's the one."

"But mom, (since he is Kindergarten now and an official expert at letter-sounds) it just sounds like fox with the the ending for duck. How is that a bad word? What does it mean anyways. Why do people say it? Why, why, why, what, what, what???"

I quickly put a ki-bosh on the 20 questions and moved to a different topic. But wow! What a morning! How about a little peace on earth and a Merry little Christmas to you!?