I hate being in a bad mood. I have no idea why I was in a bad mood this evening when I got home from work but I was. I went to the supermarket but that didn’t put me in a bad mood. I was in a bad mood coming up the street because I was anticipating that the skateboard punks were going to be at the church again. These kids are out there almost daily jumping off the church steps onto the street. I am awaiting one of them to go flying into the road and get hit by a car. I hate to say it but I think that at some point these kids are going to end up hurting themselves and looking for bigger and bigger thrills. I just fear that eventually one of them will probably end up knocking over a convenience store or end up in a drug rehabilitation facility. And if they get the help that they need then that is fine but I’d rather see that stopped before it gets to that point. They have no respect for the property of the church or anyone else’s either. And talking to us they are flip and irritating.

This weekend while I was away there were some young kids playing with scooters on the church steps. Tara told them to knock it off and take a hike. They gave her lip and stalked off. Then Erik heard them again. They were on our front walk and about to fly down the walk into the road. Erik stopped them. That night when I got home from the CollegeFest convention and tried to get to sleep they were back out at the church. I called the local police but the cruiser was out on a call on the other side of town. One cruiser? What! So I watched and I waited. Sure I could have gone out there but I wanted the police to pick these kids up and take them home to their parent’s.

Anyway, I was thinking about this and I was carrying a bunch of stuff in my hands from the supermarket. As I got up the stairs the phone started ringing. I recently canceled our voice mail and caller id services. We are trying to save some money. Well I had no idea who was on the phone. The called asked if I was home. I asked, “who is this?” He stated his name. I didn’t know it so I asked what this was in regards to. He again asked for me. I asked why he wanted to talk to me. He asked if I was the person he asked for. I said how does he know me. And each time he asked the question I answered in more of an angry tone. My bad mood had slipped into bad manners. He hung up on me. So I don’t know who called.

So there are three lessons from today.

1.) Don’t anticipate that bad things will always happen, you will get in a bad mood. You may say things you regret.
2.) Teach your kids to respect public and private property. There is far to little of that right now.
3.) When you call someone a good way to start he conversation is, “Hello my name is “So and So” from “such and such” calling for “so and so”. Otherwise you are gonna come across as some sort of telemarketer or something. And I don’t know anyone who actually wants to talk with a telemarketer if they can help it.