Please, Teach Your Children

From the title of my blog, you may think that I'm going to talk about something serious.  Well... you'd pretty much be wrong.  The venting Paily is back!  Don't know if she's your favorite, but she's here anyway :)  Today I will be venting about a random teen that I don't really know.  This is how heartless I am.

My parents live a short distance from me.  Besides a short 2 month time this year, I haven't lived at my parent's house since 2009.  During that time, I never really noticed a random kid.  He wasn't my favorite.  Let's call him... Buford.  Buf for short.  Now, I honestly don't know this kid's name.  If by chance that is his name... well then I feel bad for him.

My first interaction with Buf was right after I went an bought a bunch of furniture at a garage sale.  This was while I was engaged to Hod, and I didn't have a place to keep it at my apartment.  I called my Dad who was serving a mission, and asked him if I could keep my newly acquired furniture in his mostly empty garage.  Being the loving father he is, he said yes.  Some dear friends of ours helped us move the furniture with their trailer, and their jeep.  As we pulled up to my parent's house to unload the trailer, this random kid came riding up on his bike.  This teen was just full of questions.  "What are you doing?" "Who are you?" "Where did you get all of this stuff?" "Why are you putting it here?"  During all of this time, he never offered to help.  But we almost ran him over multiple times as we moved furniture.  The female of my couple friend was staying with her 10 month old daughter.  She was still in her car seat and sitting by the jeep.  This sweet 10 month old has some health problems, and had been unable to gain weight.  Because of a cleft palate, she had a hard time eating.  To fix this, the Dr.'s put a feeding tube up through her nose and right down into her stomach.  It was a little different looking, but it wasn't hard to figure out was was going on.  Well, Buf saw the child and immediately became focused on her.  He started to reach for her, like he was going to pick her up, and then paused to ask, "What's that thing got up it's nose for?"  First of all, wow... you are lacking in English skills.  Secondly, Thing?  Even though she had a tube going up her nose, she is still very obviously a baby.  The good news is, we were finishing up, so we quickly packed up and left.

Buf has become a regular on my street.  From that day on, I learned that every time I would stop at my parents house, he would magically appear.  He always had the same questions, "Who are you?"  "What are you doing?"  "Why are you doing that?"  It became rather annoying.

During the two months that I lived with my parents this summer, I became very grateful to have access to parking inside of the garage.  I learned that if I parked inside of the garage, I could close the door before being accosted by this teenager.

I don't consider myself special though.  He is always doing this sort of thing to my parents.  My Dad's response is to give sarcastic answers.  For example, while weeding in the garden, when Buf ask's my Dad what he is doing, Dad responds something along the lines of, "Picking bananas."

I don't think that Buf is a bad guy.  Nor do I think he has unpleasant intentions.  However, he has ZERO social skills.  Someone really needs to teach this kid!

My Mom has told me that she tries to make sure she is always doing yard work when he's not around, because otherwise he always comes up and starts talking.  Sometimes he tries to help.  But that is only when he is sure he knows what he is doing... but he normally doesn't.  When you try to correct him, he doesn't take it very well.

Even though I have moved out of my parent's house, I have kept the automatic garage door opener.  This is so I can visit my parents with a little bit of safety, without having to worry about being accosted by the neighbor kid.

This weekend, we had another run in.  And I found it quite humorous.  My family has a tradition of going to the General Relief Society Broadcast together.  I met my Mom and L5 at my parent's house to carpool up to the Stake Center to watch the broadcast.  As we were leaving my parent's house, I saw Buf walking towards us.  He was carrying a basketball... and using it to try to hide an apple.  My parents have quite a few apple trees.  While they were on their mission, we didn't take good care of the apples, and they were normally full of worms.  Eventually, they would fall off of the tree and become deer food.  However, this year, my Dad has done a great job of taking care of his apple trees.  As a result, he has quite a nice crop of apples.  My parents are kind, and for the bulk of my life, I remember them telling our neighbors that they could have an apple here and there as long as they asked, and as long as they ate it.  Home-grown apples look quite different than store-bought.  I wasn't trying to be a tattle-tale, I was just making an observation, and I said to my Mom, "Look, it's Buf... and he has one of your apples."

Mom was not very pleased.  She stopped the car and asked him what he was doing.  He stammered.  She asked him where he got the apple.  He stammered some more, motioning over to the trees.  Mom pointed out that they were her trees, and she would like him to ask before taking them.  Buf responded that they always fall on the ground anyway.  But, Mom wasn't backing down.  She told Buf that yes, sometimes they do, however, they weren't on the ground, and he needs to ask before taking someone else's apples.  Buf looked ashamed, and said he was sorry, then with his tail between his legs (Ok, he doesn't have a tail) he turned towards his home.

I do NOT understand this kid.  But this is what he is always doing.  He wanders the town, and talks to all of the neighbors.  He seems to have no grasp of courtesy, or proper actions.

So, this is my request:  Please, teach your children.  Just the basics of social skills.  Please.  And maybe, someday, my parents can be outside without fearing that they will be bothered by a random neighbor kid.  And maybe, someday, I will feel like I can go visit my parents without having to run from my car to the house to avoid all of the questions.

Seriously.  It totally bugs.