That boy has got problems

While my darling cousin Emily was here this weekend, she got to witness the bizarre spectacle that is The Children Across the Street. She was already horrified by their constant staring in our direction, the incessant hellos from the youngest girl, and the swinging of wooden baseball bats at each other-- you know, the things that have become a normal day in our neighborhood. And then we saw the absolute icing on the cake.

You may recall that part of my new fence needed to come down to allow for the excavation of our sewer pipe (an event that quickly became the talk of the town). Two dowels and one post were taken down, and to do this, the workmen removed 2 galvanized nails and then left them stuck in the top of one of the remaining posts.

While I watched from the kitchen, the middle child from across the street, an 8 year old boy who when asked how to spell his name told me, "I have yearned many things, but I have never yearned to spell my own name," wandered over to inspect the newly poured cement of the sidewalk. Then I saw him touching the nails in the fence post. As my cousin and I exchanged a disdainful look, I realized that the nails were no longer in the post. I called out the door, "G-----, did you take those nails?"

"What?"

"I said, did you take those nails? From the fence?"

And that's when he pulled them out of his mouth.