Monday afternoon, Jachin came rushing through the door after school, panting and red faced.
“Wow,” I said, “Did you run all the way home or something?”
“No,” he said, blurting out words between breaths, “someone threw a chicken leg at Cade, and I had to chase him down the street.”
“Wait… what?” I asked, confused. “Someone threw a chicken leg at you and Cade?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of chicken leg? Like, KFC?”
“Yeah, like KFC, and it came two inches from hitting Cade in the head.”
“Who threw it?” I asked.
“Some teenagers in a red car. Both of the windows were open and they threw the chicken leg at us and kept on driving. They were laughing.”
“So what did you guys do?”
“Well, first Cade kicked the chicken leg into someone’s flower garden, and then he ran after them, shaking his fist and yelling ‘You suck!’ at the top of his lungs. And then I ran after Cade and tackled him in the neighbor’s yard, and covered his mouth and told him that it was not a good idea to yell ‘you suck’ in public.”
At this point I was wondering a few things. One, who the hell is throwing chicken legs at my kid? Two, who would waste perfectly good KFC on a prank… especially if it’s crispy? And three, should I be happy that my son saved his friend from a potential beat-down by teenagers, or worried that the neighbors saw my kid tackle another kid and put his hand violently over the other kid’s mouth like he was accosting him?
I know, they’re all really good questions.
So, last night the whole family packed into the car to dispense some vigilante justice. None of us knew exactly what was going down, but something had to be done about the disrespect and the wasted chicken.
“Are you going to punch them when they open the door, Dad?” Jachin asked.
“No one is getting punched,” my husband said. I, personally, thought that we should have brought along some toilet paper… y’know, to fight teenage fire with equally childish teenage fire. But that probably would have sent a mixed message to my kids.
We started at the top of the street and Jachin ran us through the events.
“Here is where we were when the chicken leg came at us. And there is the flower garden where Cade kicked it.” A few houses down he said, “And there’s the yard where I tackled him and put my hand over his mouth.” We saw the indentation in the snow that was shaped like two boys rolling around, arguing about whether or not they should go after the punks who threw a chicken leg at them.
“Show me where the red car parked,” Jon said.
“It pulled up and parked at the house on the corner, at the end of the street.” So we drove down the street to the corner.
“Right there,” Jachin said, pointing to a house currently occupied by an elderly couple. In fact, the couple has lived there over 30 years.
“Are you sure?” Jon said. “A really old couple lives here. I don’t know why teenagers would park and go in here.”
“Yeah, it was this one,” Jachin said. Then, turning and looking in the opposite direction, he said, “Or else, maaaybeeee… It may have been that one,” he said, pointing to another house across the adjacent street. Now, we don’t know who lives in that house, but there was, presently, no red car parked outside.
“Hmm,” said Jon. “What should we do?”
“I think we should go home and forget about it,” I said.
“I think we should go find the chicken leg in the flower garden,” Zoe said.
“I think a cat probably already ate it,” Jachin said.
It was at this point that Jon turned the car around and started back for our house. “Do you think I’m making too big a deal about this?” Jon asked me.
“Yes,” I said, honestly. And man, do I wish I would have lied… because a big, fat argument started over the chicken leg, and how I was the lesser parent because I was not incensed about my child almost getting his eye taken out by a delicious projectile. “No one got hurt. Nothing was damaged,” I said. I kind of thought it was funny, even. (But I didn’t tell my husband the part about me thinking it was funny.) All I could think about was how I, at 16, would cruise around with my friend, Margie, in her car. In the summer, we would take the T-tops out of her car, and she would drive down the street while I sprayed people with a super soaker and yelled obnoxious things out of my cheerleading megaphone. (Oh yeah, I was one of those irritating teenagers.) And I thought of how much fun it was, and how we never hurt anyone (even if we irritated the ever livin’ crap out of them), and how if this wasn’t my kid we were talking about, it would really just be kind of hilarious.
As of now, the mystery remains in the unsolved case files. The chicken leg is becoming garden compost as we speak. We are, however, still on the look out for the elusive red car with wild teenagers and buckets of fried chicken in it. It will no doubt be parked at some corner house at some point. Nancy Drew is on the case… and she’s bringing toilet paper.
