I'm "that" person

Part of me doesn't really think that I should post this but I am a very truthful person and I did this so here it is in black and white. A confession if you will. I am laughing but at the same time I am not...if that makes sense. The laughter is nervous laughter. If you happen to be in law enforcement why don't you just skip this post and come back tomorrow and if you are in law enforcement all names in this blog are fictitious, yeah, that's my story and I am stickin' to it.

Tonight when the girls and I left swim practice we were driving down the street that we take to get to the main drag when we saw a peacock. There are often peacocks here and it isn't unusual for us to see them anywhere in Miami. I was just about to say something to the girls when I saw a gorgeous tail feather at the side of the road on the grass so I pulled the car over and jumped out to get it for them. I left my car door wide open cos the kids were in the car, they were only a couple of feet away from me but by now you know I am neurotic. As I bent down to pick it up I saw another one a couple of feet away but it was behind a fence. The fence resembled this one but it was really really old, white and parts had fallen down.


I told the girls I could see another one but at the same time I noticed that the peacock was walking around to my side of the car so I decided I better hurry and get back in in case the peacock tried to get in the car. Yes, in hindsight I now realise that that is a totally ridiculous thought but birds, animals and I just don't get along so I had visions of this enormous bird getting into the drivers seat of my car and terrorising my children. I said to Lily, I dare you to grab that feather. It was a dare because the peacock was about. I then said to her it is the other side of the fence so it is on someones private property so be quick, and be careful. She literally only had to reach about 2 ft and as you can see by the fence it wasn't hard to do.

Kidlet flew from the car and was back in a flash. I started to pull away when words that will haunt me for a long time came out of her mouth, "Mum, I broke the fence". "WHAT? What do you mean you broke the fence?" Rosie then said, "she broke the fence". OH dear heavens, I didn't know what to do. I was already away from the property and looking for a place to turn around. I was blurting questions at her in rapid fire succession and not getting the answer I wanted to hear. Both girls and I were laughing hysterically. I finally found a place to turn around, a driveway which made Lily say, "great, more trespassing" and headed back to the scene of the crime. When Lily had climbed back through the fence she stood up to quickly and her back hit the top rung of the fence and it fell down. It was completely rotten which explains why after further inspection that so much of the fence was broken and laying in the grass BUT that is not the point, the point is we damaged someone elses property. At this point we are guilty of trespassing, stealing (the feather) and fleeing the scene. Holy cwap we are going away for a long time. All these thoughts are going through my head.

We pulled down a side road and kept talking about what we had done. We knew what the right thing to do was, we needed to go back, knock on the door and turn ourselves in. After discussing the odds of whether a Cuban Mafiosa lived there or an ax murder Lily finally decided it was probably a really nice old English gentleman, (yeah right) and that we needed to head back. I rang Jacob, I don't know why I just did but he didn't answer, I swear that man can sense when I have screwed up.

After much deliberation I knew that I had to go back to the house of the crazed axe murderer and confess and hope to god he didn't want me to fence his whole garden for him or didn't decide to call the police and press charges. I always tell the kids to do the right thing. I pound into the feeble little minds that they won't get into as much trouble if they just tell the truth. Now I had to walk to the walk and talk the talk. I swung the car around and we parked across the street. As we got out Lily told Rosie to get her blanket and to suck her thumb cos that way she would look sweet and innocent and how could anyone get mad at a sweet child. We all dissolved into hysterics again and then I grabbed their hands and we started walking up the long driveway. As we climbed the steps to the front door I took a deep breath and kind of pushed the kids behind me in case  Yosemite Sam answered the door with guns blazing.

The first time I knocked I was so darned scared that you wouldn't have been able to hear it if you had been standing the otherside of the door just waiting for me to arrive. The next time I knocked like I meant it. We saw the blinds move and heard little kids voices talking Spanish. I braced myself but nothing happened. I waited for a minute then knocked again. Again the blinds moved and again nobody answered. On the fourth attempt I knew it was do or die time. I whacked the door the looked at the blinds, they saw me and still ignored us so I explained to the girls that they were not going to answer. We waited I called Hello and Hola and then we walked slowly back to the car.

We tried to do the right thing. Lily started to giggle again and Rosie suggested we go and get some nails and a hammer and just "fix" it. I thought that was a bad idea so we kinda hightailed it to the car and left. We drove around the perimetre of property as we left and I really don't think they will notice this new bit of fence that is down cos it just blends in with all the other bits.

I learnt a valuable lesson and I don't care what is on the otherside of a property line it can freaking stay there and rot for all I care cos I will never EVER touch it again. EVER. What kind of Mother suggests to her kid to do something like that...oh that would be me.

Oh dear gawd. I have stooped to an all time low.