Fish.

If my life were a movie, I’m not sure who would play me.

I’d like to think Emily Blunt or a young Elisabeth Shue.  Like, Adventures in Babysitting Elisabeth…or even Cocktail.  But with less backcombing and shoulder pad.

It’s so hard to pick.

With my luck, only Bai Ling and the girl from high School Musical who posted cell phone pictures of her vagina on the internet would show up to the casting call.

Andy is much easier, he’d would be played by Hugh Grant.

Not because I adore English accents, and the phrase spotted dick makes me giggle.

But, because he’s charming and endearing and gets a bit bumbly and awkward when faced with confrontation.

It’s why when we fight, you only hear me yelling.

It’s why I’m the only one who sends food back at restaurants, or yells at people through my car window when they cut me off, or tells strangers when their pants are unzipped.

I’m that person.  He is not.

So last Friday, I stumbled out of a mid afternoon nap with a sudden craving for gummi bears, and as I stood in the sunroom, making stretchy noises and scratching my tummy (which is totally adorable by the way), I glanced out the window to find six very small children standing along the edge of my pond fishing.

And, it bugged me.  First, because I had no idea who they were, and second because, I don’t know, do I just look like the kind of responsible adult who is good at things like CPR or or rescuing drowning victims?

Because I’m not.  I slept through the last CPR class I took, and only passed because I showed so much enthusiasm during the practical portion of the test.  And really, it’s only because the plastic dummy you blew into looked like the cute brother from Hanson.

(Yeah.  It was that long ago.)

Also, I would eat a koala before I stepped foot in that damn pond.

So, I put my bra on to investigate.

I had yet to meet the neighbors at the other end of our property, maybe this was them?

I mean, I’ve seen their kids riding bikes around unattended in the road before, and I think I saw the dad in line at the ice cream truck earlier this summer, but I could definitely not pick him out of a line up.  But, really, who pays attention to anyone’s face at the icecream truck, what with being so busy bent over as the driver fishes every hard earned dollar from your ass to pay for the $9 Ninja Turtle Ice Cream bar?

Hi, my name is Brittany, do y’all live here?

No, we don’t live here, this isn’t our pond.

Right, I know, I mean, I live here, I meant, do you live here on this street?

No, we’re here because our parents are visiting their friends here. *points to my unaquainted neighbor’s house*

Oh, ok um-

Bye.

And with that, they turned their backs to me and went back to fishing and whipping eachother with their poles.

Really?

What is with kids today?

I would never have had the balls to act like that at their age.

It’s different when you are 16 and sneaking into the pool of your old neighbor with your boyfriend and a six pack of Bud Ice, this was in the light of day, and these kids were young.  I would guess ages ranging from three to eight.

So I walked back to my house, all pissy and annoyed in my head.

I’m pretty sure I complained about it all night, which Andy found to be a welcome vacation from my normal bitching about Pluto being a star or NBC for canceling Studio 60.

The next afternoon, I came home from running at the park (yes, I’m still doing that, and yeah, I’m equally surprised) to find a front yard full of parked cars, and even more kids spread across my pond and yard, fishing, throwing mud at each other, and other unsupervised shenanigans.

I could not believe it.

As I stood there, mouth agape, the boys’ friend from next door came over with the party invitation we had never received.

It was a Church gathering.  A celebration of Christ and fellowship.

Come mingle, eat, rejoice and bring your poles for fishing because OH HEY, there’s a pond stocked with bass and sunfish.

Which is weird.  Because, while I’ve never met these neighbors, I’m almost 80% sure they aren’t hiding a fish stocked pond in their backyard.

So, I stood on my deck.  Using my mean face.  Glaring at these trespassers.

And none of them cared.

What do I do?

This is a huge, monumental liability.

If they want to let small children go unattended in their yard or in the road, that is their issue, but I just can’t have this happening on my property.  I don’t let my own kids so much as breath near that pond without me being right next to them, I can’t be responsible for the children of twenty strangers who show up unannounced.

Do I walk over, bust in the giant tent of seated adults like a crazy person?

I don’t want to embarrass them.

I’ve been on the receiving end of smite before, and it’s, like, totally unpleasant, and usually involves lots of finger pointing, stone casting and damnation.

Andy said we should wait until the next day to say something.

But what if somebody drowns, Andy?

What if they injure themselves on our property?

Not to mention, they are obviously extremely rude and thoughtless and totally assy, and there ain’t nothing Christian about that.

But, I listened to him.

Partly because I don’t like when people pray for me (mom!), but also because we had a baseball game to get to and he promised me hotdogs and beer.

But the next morning, bright and early, I was on Andy to get over there.

I would have gone myself, but we both agreed it would be best if he went and did most the talking.

My reaction in these situations is such, that I am always about four seconds from hitting someone across the face with a chair and accusing them of raping the elderly.

So we go over, and the father is outside, and he is way huger than I remember him from the icecream truck, and he has a cast on his hand.

Probably from when he murdered the last non church goers who confronted him about manners and human decency.

So, here is a satellite picture from Heaven of our property, for, like, perspective.

So, we walk over, and  Andy was all, Hey erm, um, about yesterday, we are aware you sent out an invitation to your church to fish openly in our pond, and I am all OMG IT WAS THE RUDEST THING EVER WHO DOES THAT!? And Andy is like, yes, so the thing is, um, it’s just really, like, um, this huge, uh, liability issue, and I was like I WILL ATTACK YOU,  WHERE ARE THE CHAIRS? WHERE ARE THE MOTHER FUCKING CHAIRS!? And Andy is all, it was probably an oversight on your part, but we were never asked, and you know, it’s just not a good, um, situation, and then I was all JESUS DOESN’T LOVE OLD PEOPLE RAPERS, MISTER, NO HE DOES NOT, and Andy was all, one second.

And he pulls me aside all spazzy.

Yeah, what are you doing?

Oh my God, he looks totally scared, right?

Maybe you should walk back and I will finish things here.

Why, I’m in, like, a zone.

I don’t think it’s going the way you think it is in your head, you’re kinda freaking everybody out.

I thought we were really feeding off each other.  Like good cop, bad cop.

It’s coming off like good cop, mentally unstable, meth head cop.

You’re crazy, this is totally working.

Just go back to the house with the kids.

Ugh.

So, I turned around to walk back, but, to maintain my level of intimidation I was all, ok, I’m gonna go back to help the kids with their street fighting lesson and read all my books about guns and murdering things.

I watched from the window.  Andy was over there for, like, 30 more minutes, and by the time they left, they were all giggly and in boy love.  Which means Andy totally wasn’t as tough as he should have been, and they spent the last 20 minutes shooting the shit and talking about guy stuff, like sports and boobies.

Coward.

I think it’s clear who wears the pants around here when it comes to crisis situations.