My Year of Meaningful (2011)

..... and we're STILL waiting to be OFFICIALLY SUMMONED by Lt. Gen. VP-man. Or as I like to call him, "The Big Mustache".

It could be any minute now, or maybe tomorrow? Maybe yesterday? Maybe while I'm sitting at the lunch table with chicken salad all over my face. Hmmm. I really hate being somebody's beeyatch. I hate it. And I gave the engineers some attitude about it yesterday too. Particularly because all this "Hurry up and wait" nonsense is TOTALLY UNPAID. Gah!

So our little (large) boy has flown the nest today - we dropped Alan off at the airport this morning where he caught a flight down to Jozi and is gonna hang at Ma & Pa P.'s until this weekend or so. The immigration people want him IN THE COUNTRY while his application is being processed. It could be a day, a couple days, a week, who knows. Either way he PLANS to rent a car and drive back up here this weekend, but won't be 100% sure until they tell him one way or another.

Last night we went to the track and did one of his "real" track workouts while The Mr. and Eric played tennis. I haven't run intervals since my old High School track days. I have to admit that while it hurts like a bitch, I can actually feel the "important" spots really getting their physical workout (i.e. thighs and ass). Nothing else works those areas like sprinting. Hence the killer arses that all male and female sprinters always have. A girl can dream, huh...

OK now for the bizarre story of the day.

Terry from the Block. Right, well. He still comes around all the time looking to hang out. Sometimes we hang out, sometimes we just have to send him packin' because we're busy. (A la the life of my parents back at our old house when my bro and I were kids and we constantly had Jon K. on our doorstep wanting to know if "Jet can come out?" Dinner time, 7am, bedtime, you name it... there was big, fat Jon K. from down the street, ringin' the damn doorbell). Anyway! Back to Terry from the Block. So we took he and his 15yo brother to the "BW Show"... the equivalent of the State Fair or whatever (or as Brandon would say "the Stut Far") back in Hooterville. I got my phone stolen when someone boldly reached into my cargo pants pocket and helped themself to it. Probably while we were in the sardine-packed mob in line to ride the Hully Gully. Didn't even know it happened til we got home that day. But that's a whole 'nother story. I have always hated having 2 cellphones anyway so really it's a blessing in disguise. Whatever. I'm STILL digressing. Back to Terry from the block (again!).

So when we came back from the Show, he said he had to hang out at our house b/c their parents wouldn't be home. We were a little bit annoyed because when the kids are around you have to watch them & quite frankly the 3 of us had a rotten time at the Show (it was pretty bad - except for the Hully Gully) and didn't feel like babysitting a 12 and a 15 y.o. Either way to make a long story short, The Mr. was uncomfortable that whole afternoon b/c he "got the feeling" that T from the B was casing the joint. He kept asking questions about the PlayStation and about the boxes that said "Lost" on them (our jigsaw boxes!!) under the coffee table, and he kept investigating things (like rooms we weren't sitting in, etc). I said "oh don't be such a fussy pants" (no of COURSE I didnt say that, but whatever) but I am always the one to give everyone the benefit of the doubt so I told him to relax. The weirdest thing, however, was that Sech was LOSING HIS MIND barking at T from the B. The WHOLE AFTERNOON. And I mean viciously, viciously barking. We'd never seen anything like it.

Anyway, the next day the boys were gone and I was at home alone working and all of a sudden Sech BOLTS out the back door barking his head off, losing his mind. Lo and behold there's T from the B coming up the driveway. I sent him packing again b/c I was busy. But I could feel that something was awry. Just a gut feeling.

Monday, the Mr. gets a phone call from T from the B. He wants to know if we're "going to be home at 7:00 tonight". The Mr. says "No" and asks "Why" and T from the B hangs up. Funny thing though, it wasn't his mom's cell number, which he normally calls from.

Monday night, 8pm after we're done playing tennis/running. I have 10 missed calls from Mary on my phone and a message "Call me! it's urgent!" I call her, and hear that while she was outside feeding the dogs around 6:30, she came back inside and found the kitchen door open, some things on the TV room floor that hadnt been there 5 minutes ago, the PlayStation missing, and the "Lost" puzzle box on the kitchen floor! I ask if she saw or heard anything, and she says that she found a large footprint on the driveway (I asked if she thought it was a child's and she said no), a stone by the kitchen door that wasnt there 5 mins ago, and she thinks she saw someone running away but it was through the trees so she didnt get a look at the person!

Well straight away the Mr. goes "It was Terry!" Of course me, always the benefit-of-the-doubter, goes "no way! He wouldnt have the balls!" The Mr. goes:

• He was casing the joint all weekend!
• Sech has always hated him!
• He always looks in our windows!
• He is OBSESSED with the Play Station!
• Just this weekend he asked me what the boxes are that say "Lost" on them!
• He called me to see if we'd be home at 7:00 tonight!
• He KNOWS what Mary's schedule is!
• He would HAVE to know where the PS was in order to grab it so fast - which he does!

I go:

• Come on, he's annoying but he isn't a thief!
• Mary said the footprint was "big"!
• Sech would've barked his head off if it was him!
• You know the neighbours across the road have had their houses burgled recently - I bet it's those same thieves.

(MAN I'm good!)

He goes:

• Sech was eating his dinner on the other side of the house! You know we could get bombed and he'd keep eating!
• Why would the REAL thieves that broke into Neighbours A and B last week AT 2 AM to steal MONEY, and BIG STUFF, come to our house in broad daylight and steal a PLAYSTATION??? And for that matter, be able to pull it off in less than 5 minutes???

True enough, true enough.

We get home and the Mr. jumps on the phone and rings T from the B's mom. He says something to the effect of "Good evening madam, my name is The Mr. and I live in Notwane. I would like to come and talk to you about T from the B, because I'm worried about him". She says "are you the gentleman who took him to the Show this wknd?" he says yes. She immediately passes the phone to The Dad. The Mr. repeats himself and he says "Oh yes, please do come. We'll meet you at the gate and I'll bring Terry". So me, he, and Mary zip up the road to the place where his dad works and they live out the back. There's mom, dad, and T. standing at the gate, holding hands, waiting for us. I notice Dad is young and good looking and Mom looks petrified, shy, and sweet. I let the Mr. do the talking. I'm still nervous about accusing someone about something that we aren't 100% sure he's done.... particularly being The Big White Presence and all.

The Mr: "Good evening sir, I just wanted to have a word with you about something we're concerned about, regarding Terry".

Dad: "Are you having problems with this boy? Because I'll tell you something: We're having a difficult time trusting him ourselves, these days."

The Mr: "Terry, something happened at our house this afternoon and we need to know if you had anything to do with it, and I hope you're going to be honest with me."

(Man! Does this sound like an after-school special or what???)

--Silence--

The Mr: "You rang me this afternoon wanting to know if I would be home around 7pm tonight."

Me (jumping in just for the fun of it): "YES! And interestingly enough, at 6:30 we had a bit of a STEALING issue at our house while we were gone..." (WOO HOO! NAILED THAT ONE!!!)

The Mr: "Terry, did you by any chance come to our place and take something that didn't belong to you?"

The Dad: "Show him the box, Terry"

(here's where we notice a rather familiar looking box sitting on the driveway... it's the box our frickin' coffee maker came in!!! Which had been in our bloody KITCHEN just that morning!! So we go over and open it up and lo and behold there is not only a PSII in there, but also my IPOD SPEAKERS and our DART BOARD... notably two of the very things he's been obsessing over every time he comes to our house!! Which we didnt even notice were gone! WOAH!!)

So anyway the boy has eyes the size of dinner plates, he obviously knows he's gonna get the shit kicked out of him tonight as soon as we leave. He drops to his knees and grabs our hands and apologizes at least 3 times as his dad jerks him up to his feet and drags him off into the staff quarters which would probably lead to the worst few hours of his life.

But before that, some soundbytes from the 3 or 4-minute conversation:

The Mr. "Terry, we're very disappointed in you. We've been taking you places and buying you ice cream and drinks and entertaining you and this is what you do to us?" (Me thinking "AGH! This is the sound of MY Husband, pulling out "Mom's Greatest Hits!!!")

Dad: "Terry HOW could you have done this!! This is NOT what we need in our family!! We are VISITORS in this country (they're from Zim) and we do NOT need this working against us!!!"

Dad (to us): "He told us that you guys gave him this stuff to borrow. I am really, really, so very sorry."

Dad (to us): "We have been having really big problems with this boy. Problems at school, problems everywhere. This boy has been making quite some trouble lately."

Terry (to us): "Mr. & Mrs., I want to say I am so sorry. I want you to forgive me. What I did was very wrong and I am so sorry."

Anyway, during this time, Mary is explaining to the Mom about how her daughter even saw T. walking up the road with a box in his hands but she wasn't sure what it was - and how last week while we were camping, T from the B and his brother were hanging around our house A LOT and she had to keep sending them away. I'd say the biggest thing that flabbergasted them the most was the fact he premeditated the whole thing and rang us from someone else's number that afternoon to see if we'd be around.

• Funny thing, kid thinking he could actually get away with using the whole "they gave it all to me to borrow" line.
• I wonder what role the brother had in it all, if any? The brother has much more of an innocent, genuine aura around him.
• I had a weird gut feeling this weekend when he was over. I know now that I was trying to suppress that gut feeling, idealistically, whereas the Mr. just comes right out with his, verbally.
• So that's what the random rock (that Mary noticed wasn't there 5 minutes ago) was all about, on the driveway... it was to throw at Sech if he came barrelling up to him barking his head off (in hindsight the Mr. recalls telling him this weekend that "you're only allowed to throw a rock at Sech if he ever attacks you")!
• I still don't hate T from the B. If anything, I see my brother in him. My brother was a bad, bad kid who would do similar very bad, bad things. But he grew into a good guy, somehow.
• I have a very good feeling about the Dad and Mom. They were really good, well-spoken, decent, concerned people. I think they just really have a problem kid on their hands and they can only do as good as folks like my own parents could do in that situation. Which is basically: Make your kid apologize, don't apologize for them, and punish the snot out of 'em when they f*ck up.

Lessons learned:

• He didn't swipe my cell phone. That was someone else. We called it and the bastards actually picked up and told the Mr. to "F*** off!!" and that was while the boys were in the car with us.
• Your gut is rarely wrong, which is why my mantra (that I should really put into practice) has always been "Follow your gut feeling, dammit, cuz it's nearly always right!!"
• Dogs are the most incredible Character-Barometers in the world. They don't act randomly and there's a reason that animals are known in other cultures to be able to read the "vibes" in the air. People should pay more attention to their dogs when they try to talk to you.