That Which Has Gone Before

A "You Need A Weblog" Story

In the past, I would occasionally come in to the office with an amusing story to tell. On some occasions these stories would elicit the comment "You need a weblog for this stuff," from my boss. Well, now that I do indeed have one I decided to run some of these stories.

About three months ago I came home late from a poker game to find my street teeming with activity. Kids were all over the place - milling around, yelling, drinking, smoking, and generally acting like the hormone-imbalanced crazy people that teenagers are. I pulled into my garage and went in to see what Katy knew about it.

"Apparently somebody's parents are out of town," I said to Katy after I made sure she knew I was her husband and not a burglar. She woke up enough to let me know that (a) the party started around 9:30 or 10 PM and (b) she had seen somebody peeing in the street. I went to the front bedroom windows to check out the action.

It looked like the party was winding down - more and more people were wandering around the streets looking for their cars - and once they got in their cars, honking and peeling out. I decided that it was a good thing I moved my sprinkler controls into the garage - I could turn on the lawn sprinklers should any of the party-goers decide they needed to rest or take care of any other business in front of our house.

Within about twenty minutes the street was clear - well, clear of people. I could see a lot of trash and bottles by the streetlights. Hmm. I went to bed.

The next morning we were up early and out the door for a volleyball game. On the way down the street Katy was quite vocal in her displeasure at the mess in the street - and rightly so. There were food wrappers, bottles, boxes, cigarette butts, and associated junk all up and down the street - a very unusual sight in our normally clean suburban subdivision. I figured I'd clean up in front of our house when we got back, and we drove away without thinking much more about it.

We were gone for a few hours for volleyball but when we turned up our street we noticed a transformation. The street looked great. All the trash was gone - it practically looked like somebody had scrubbed the curbs. And when I went to check the mail I found this letter in the mailbox. I almost died laughing.

And Katy's anger melted away.