They had at least four children. (I lost count)
The mom used to lock the kids outside when she was angry with them....all day long. They would come beg for lunch from the other neighbors.
Yes, DFS was called.
They were new in the neighborhood around the same time as us. One day the boys came over to play and I sent them down to the basement with my kids along with instructions to stay out of one corner. Just one corner. The corner where the sewing stuff is. That's all. One corner. The other three? Fair game. Full of toys. Approximately 3 minutes later, the two boys came upstairs with bloody fingers.
Me-Why are your fingers bleeding?
Boy 1-I was playing and I saw this thing and it looked like a toy so I went to play with it and it cut my fingers!
Me-Where did you find it?
Boy 1-In the corner.
Me-Which corner? The one I told you to say out of?
Boy 1-Yes.
Me-Okay. (to Boy 2) And what happened to you?
Boy 2-I saw him get cut so I wanted to see if it would cut me too. Can we have some band-aids?
Me-No. Here's a tissue. Go home.
One day I was returning home from....somewhere. I don't know. I'm driving down the street....I press my garage door opener....I realize that not only is my garage door going up AND down, there is also a small child dangling from it. I do a double take, look around to make sure it is indeed my house (it was). I pull into my driveway and hysterically question this child as to WHAT THE HELL HE THOUGHT HE WAS DOING! While I am actively having a conniption, the younger brother comes out from the garage. He had been stationed inside to press the button. Turns out the previous occupants of our house had not kept their garage code a secret from aaaanyone. As I am sending these children home, they point to some (not even slightly empty) LaCroix cans on my lawn.
"Your soda tastes disgusting," they inform me. At this point, they scurry off home. At least they knew to hit the road before my head exploded. Aaaand I changed the garage door code.
Another neighbor reported that she saw the mom and three of the kids driving down the street one day and they stopped to say hi. She looked in the minivan and said, "Oh is the baby home with Daddy?" The mother waved the baby monitor and chirped,"Nope! Home napping! We're going to the store!", as if this is the best idea evarrrr and she can hear the monitor from the frickin' grocery store.
Again, DFS was called on this family. A lot.
This family claimed to be very "religious". Most of the neighborhood preferred the term "weird-ass Jesus freaks". The kids would run up to us on the street and hand us Bibles that their parents had instructed them to distribute. Like we were all Godless wonders. Then the oldest one would come back later and beat up my son.
On Halloween, the boys dressed up like Abraham and Moses and trick-or-treated. If by "trick-or-treat", you mean "terrorize innocent children and steal their candy". Their house, on the other hand, was dark. Because they didn't believe in celebrating the heathen spectacle that was Halloween.
Then there was the out and out thievery. It's one thing to snag a Hershey bar from a terrified youngster or break into a garage and help yourself to a flavored fizzy water, but it is quite another to big fat steal a bicycle from a front lawn or a GameBoy from a stoop. Wait a minute....what the hell?!?! It's all thievery! What am I saying!!!! Those boys took KDHD's bike from our FRONT LAWN. We weren't sure it was them until two years later when we saw their little sister riding around on it. At that point I knew there was nothing to be done...I just wish she would at least wear the helmet they stole along with the bike. When they took another neighbor's GameBoy and sold it to an older kid, the mother of the victim confronted them with their mother. The conversation went something like this, I'm told:
Victim's mom- What happened to my kid's GameBoy?
Thief- I took it and sold it to a 16 year old.
Vic's mom (to thief's mom)- Your kid admitted he stole from my kid, on our front stoop. What are you going to do about it?
Thief's mom- I'm not doing anything. Your kid should take better care of his stuff.
Then the parents became professional bodybuilders and they all moved to a shack in Hawaii just in time for the boys to avoid getting busted for a huge vandalism spree. And we lived happily ever after.
DHS probably showed up the next day.
Organizing these dogs takes more effort than the seating plan at a shotgun wedding. When it's time for the Bad Dog to go outside, the proclamation is made,
"Maddie is coming up!"
Suddenly the humans put down their beers and spring into action-each has a dog to grab and corral until Maddie gets outside. The grandma who is NOT a dog person (God love her) barricades herself in the bathroom until she hears the all clear.
When Maddie is once again safely ensconced in the basement (yes, it has furniture and carpet-shut up) WITH a baby gate blocking the stairs just in case, Dog forbid, someone should forget and OPEN THE DOOR!!!!, the dogs are released into a swirling vortex of canine glee that could only be enhanced by the addition of raw meat.
Of course, every time Maddie comes up there is a different mix of dogs available to react to her since the puppy and the rat terriers can't seem to share air space without getting snappish, so they have to take turns in the box.
The one constant is Maggie...sitting on her little bed....reigning from on high (ummmm, well, low) with an air of studied indifference. Tooting.
Oh yeah, the humans? I guess they got along just fine. No one noticed.
