A Summer Feud

On a Summer day where every kid in the city was outside the conditions were perfect, high 80's with a slight breeze.  Every kid on the block was cooling down with super-soaker and hose wars. Even the adults were having a good time on the wondrous day at hand. Everyone but the Crazy lady, as the kids called her, was having a great time. She was determined to wreck everyones day.


After I ate a late breakfast I went across the street to get my friend Alec and his older brother Craig. I knocked at the door and Alec answered.

" Hey Ryan what's up?" "Not much Alec wana have a super-soaker war?" Alec replied happily "Sure. We should get George too."

I went back across the street to get my neighbor George out as well. His mom answered and told me he would be out in 10 minutes. As I got ready for the intense battle that was to come more kids were coming out also ready for war. This battle was going to require all the yards on the block. This was not to the liking of the Crazy Lady. As the day wore on yards were wrecked by all the water and running kids. Front lawns that were once crisp and perfectly manicured were now nothing but muddy swamps that were suitable for crocodiles. This was the first time the Crazy Lady came out and expressed her disapproval of kids. She put the hammer down so to speak by leaving a looming threat of calling the cops on us. From then on we had all water fights on the other side of the street.

On days that water wars were non-sufficient to the weather we played woffel-ball or even just threw the pigskin around. Now knowing we couldn't play on her lawn, we played over her property. If we played catch one person would be on each side of her lawn. But of course a ball would manage to land on her now perfect grass and she would tap on the window with phone in hand to reinstate the threat of the police. So we would have to sacrifice that ball because she would then come out of her lair to come confiscate the object that intruded on her perfect lawn.

Up until this time we hadn't had the cops called but many of our possessions had been taken. Sometimes we felt the need to get them back so all the kids that had had something confiscated would go up a ring her doorbell and her response was very concise and potent.


"Read the sign. NO TRESPASSING OR LOITERING."


Eventually the other kids and I got tired of getting our stuff taken so we rebelled and just started to neglect her threats and grab our possessions before she could. When I first started to run through the war zone to get my belongings I tried to do it stealthily by crouching under the windows where she couldn't see me and then someone would tell me if she was looking or not.

"Is she gone yet George?" "No not yet Ryan. Wait hold on she's..... OK she's gone."

But then this got old and we all realized how crazy it was that we couldn't walk on someones lawn. But with this false sense of security came the consequences. She finally called the cops on us for going on her lawn during a Woffel-ball game where a throw home missed its target and ended up on her lawn. One of the younger players in the game, Ian who was about 5, went to go get the ball. When he started towards her lawn the phone got whipped out and she was calling the cops. About a half an hour later the cops, sure enough, showed up. We were speechless.

The cops got out of their car and asked jokingly,"Alright which one of you hoodlums trespassed on her property?"

We all pointed at the innocent five year old. They laughed with us at the stupidity of her accusation. They told us that to deal with people like her we just have to abide by them and live around her. That is exactly what we did. we moved our games farther down the block or we played on the other side of the street. To this day no one has talked to the Crazy lady. In the winter now her sidewalk is the only one not shoveled and she now pays for landscaping where we would cut her grass before the whole trespassing indecent.