Slackers and Delinquents

Wil pinged me today, asking where I've been and why I've been such a blog slacker. Boy, I have been a slacker lately, haven't I? I'm still working on the Devil's Challenge report, but writing something you'd care to read has been like pulling teeth for some reason. It's like triathlon season ended and 100 IQ points just slurped out of my ears and onto the pavement.

After Sunday's race, Karyn told me to just take a week, kick back, recharge some mental batteries and do what I felt like doing. I felt like doing nothing; mission accomplished, though I did sign up to lose my marathon virginity at the P.F.Chang's Rock 'n Roll Marathon in Phoenix, AZ on January 15, 2006. I considered riding the Apple Cider Century Ride on Sunday but...nah. I'm going out for blueberry pancakes instead.

There has been drama of the non-triathlon kind around our house, though. At about 10:30 P.M. Wednesday night I arrived home to find the Tri-Wife and Tri-Daughter #4 talking to a Great Suburban Outback police officer while they washed various substances off the house and cars parked in the driveway.

Turns out that, through a sequence of events loosely related to the facts that (a) teenage boys think with their dicks instead of their brains and (b) the parents of said teenage boys are incapable of any rational thought at all, we found our cars covered with what turned out to be, um, human excrement and our house marred with numerous paintball strikes.

The 6 miscreants were quickly identified, tracked down and, after I signed complaints against them, arrested, booked and fingerprinted. They now face a court date and possible suspension from the varsity football team for at least a game (against the school's biggest rival.)

One kid (the driver, apparently) stopped by last night and offered a personal, heartfelt apology. He's an emerging football star, a nice, (usually) well-mannered, good-looking kid who has had dinner at our house several times. He did a dumb thing and, Lord knows, we've all been there. But he owned up to it like a man and has learned an important lesson along the way. I'm cool with that; in fact I offered to go to bat for him with the coach so he gets to play.

But as you might expect, with some of the other 5 kids the "parental rationalization bullshit machine" is out in full force. "How can you harass MY kid like that? We're gonna SUE you!" have been common responses to the police and the school. Never mind that the kids have not only confessed and ratted each other out, THEY WERE CAUGHT ON SURVEILLANCE VIDEOTAPE!!! It's such an ugly sight, that of breathtakingly clueless, moronic parents proving yet again that apples do indeed fall pretty close to the procreative tree.

As I just told the police officer a few minutes ago, I don't mind jamming up those kids. Big deal if it costs them a college football scholarship. No nice guy, no breaks, no slack. As the TV show said, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time..."