On our way home from the Apple Valley Transit Center’s auxiliary lot, we were greeted by three young bicycle riders who may normally be found dead center in the middle of the street whenever you round a corner. I’m not about to get into a discussion about proper parenting but I am going to compare what happened after we saw these three in June of 2008 versus what would have occurred in June 1985 when I began riding my bike.

Based on my best guess, I would say that all of the children are under the age of seven. The oldest two, saw us coming and fairly promptly moved to the side of the road and pulled onto the grass to wait for us to pass. I wasn’t going to go very far past where they now stood as I was heading for the mailbox where I am still awaiting my money promised by George W. Bush that I should have received two weeks ago but still have not yet — will I be audited instead? The youngest of the three (he’s probably 3 years old) was riding a plastic tricycle and stops in the middle of the street instead of pulling over to the side. I’m fine with that, he’s obviously young and might not understand what to do — right? Well, I wait and he just stares at me. He eventually moves out of the road and I begin to creep forward towards the mailboxes. Suddenly, after flashing a toothy grin that I would have only expected from someone 10+ years older than this kid, he pulls back out into the street on what seemed like a suicide mission — still with that shit eating grin. I stop the car and scream at him — mostly due to adrenaline which was now coursing through my body at the thought of Darwin winning at my eventual expense — but he just smiles at me. I couldn’t believe it. Finally, after several long seconds of me screaming at him to move out of the street he does and I roll forward to the box and get out to get the mail. The oldest, apparently his brother is now staring at me from the safety of the grass. I don’t say anything to any of the children and get my mail and move back to my car, carefully watching them just in case they decide to roll under the car to really fuck themselves up.

I pull into the driveway, open the garage door, and move the garbage cans into the garage, where they belong unlike several of my neighbors who like to leave them in their driveways — against Apple Valley ordinances — and let the dog piss on his favorite tree. I turn around from watching Buddy do his thing and saw the oldest sibling and the middle girl staring at me from the end of the street. Undaunted by the silent threat by a 7 and 5 year old on miniature bicycles, I stared back with my best “get off my lawn you fucking little bastards!” look which apparently did nothing — I guess they just aren’t accustomed to that being that no one over the age of 45 resides in Apple Valley.

Anyway, I’m now awaiting the eggs which will adorn my stoop, bottom of my garage door, and sidewalk because they won’t have the arm strength to hurl them from the street and make it. I’m really looking forward to meeting their parental unit(s). If they told their parents what happened I’m sure it didn’t include any portion of what actually happened except that they were there and I was there and I screamed at the little shit that nearly lost his head, part of an arm and his plastic trike under my car. I have already run through this meeting in my mind and decided closing the door would be the best bet — I deal with enough douchebags on the Internet, I don’t need to deal with them at my front door too.

UPDATE (because I forgot to link this all back to 1985):

When I was riding my bike, with a direct line of sight from the front door of my house until I was nearly old enough to drive, I was mandated by parental law to pull over to the side of the road at the slightest inkling of an approaching car (in any direction). There was to be no smiling, no attempted suicide, not even the thought of anything malicious. I suppose that in the end it wouldn’t have mattered much — as long as I had actually followed all the way through with rolling myself under the oncoming car because if my parents had ever found out that I did anything like those little fuckers did to me today the result would have been the same — death.

What would you say to the parents of a suicidal three year old and 7 year old future delinquent with a staring problem?

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