Bad Boy, Bad Boy, What You Gonna Do....

Remember the good old days when even the worst behaved kids pretended to respect authority?

When all parents lived by the code: "Guilty until proven innocent"?

Those days are gone....

Long gone, I'm afraid.

My sixteen year old daughters ipod was stolen during her lunch period at her high school...
Right out of her bag...

By someone she knew... (a "friend")

She told me two days later, having put off the task knowing that I would react in a not-so-pleasant way...
(she was right)

To make matters worse, several of her other "friends" had seen the JAKWHIP (Jack Ass Kid With Her I Pod) some of whom had even been approached by the kid offering to sell them her ipod cheap...
It had hot pink earbuds and displayed her name when turned on.... no doubt about it... it was HERS!!

(Why, you ask, didn't one of them insist he hand it over on the spot? I have no idea... as I have come to realize, "friends" is a relative term these days among 16 year olds)

At that point, she had already reported all of the info to the officer at school....
and yes, you read right...
they have a "resource officer" aka the Po-Po, the Heat, the Fuzz, at every high school in the district!!

My how things have changed!

After several days of absolutely NO HELP AT ALL, my level headed husband decides that it would probably be a good idea to phone the JAKWHIP's parents.

After all, it takes a village...right?!

After debriefing him on all of the facts complete with names of witnesses, he phones the father of this future guest of the state pen...

I hear him very "Dad to Dad" talking, very calm and friendly like... using phrases like "just want to get this straightened out" and "appreciate your help"
Which is exactly why HE called instead of me...

If I had been the one to make the call, some of the phrases overheard may have included "Don't make me come over there" and "What method of torture do you plan to use to get him to talk?"

So Dad of JAKWHIP assured my guy that he was going to get to the bottom of it...

Which we learned 45 minutes later must have consisted of a conversation similar to this:

DOJAKWHIP: Son!! Did you take some girls ipod?

JAKWHIP: What Father?! Of COURSE NOT!! I would NEVER steal! You and my wonderful mother (who incidentally are the best parents that any kid could ask for and I'm lucky that you are mine) taught me better than that!!!

DOJAKWHIP: That's swell! Now you and Wally go out and play ball with the fellas... But first phone that girls Dad back and explain this to him... poor guy! He was REALLY on the wrong track! I hope he finds the REAL thief!!

How did we come to that conclusion?

Because ol' JAKWHIP phoned my husband and assured him that he didn't steal the ipod and there must have been some kind of misunderstanding.

The Dad didn't even call back...he told the Beav to!!!!

**Sigh**

At the end of the day, we sit back and shake our heads...
and long for the days when parents stuck together...

The days when they all hoped that their kids would never do anything wrong, but they understood that in raising kids...ANYTHING is possible and that even the best kids make mistakes.... sometimes BIG ones...

The days where parents weren't afraid to be parents and understood that having a good relationship with our children, didn't mean that they had to be their best friends...

I would love to be a fly on the wall in JAKWHIP's house the day that Mom or Dad is faced with the reality that their son is a thief...

I do hope for their sake that someone in the village shakes them out of their "happy trance" before the Beav ends up in the slammer!!

In the meantime, my daughter has hopefully learned several valuable lessons including listen to your mother and "friends" is an overused term that has very broad definitions and obviously doesn't mean the same thing to everyone!!

If you happen to see JAKWHIP (a.k.a. the Beav) you might want to warn him not to mess with my girl again... now that her Four older, much larger, and now angry brothers are on to his games...