It was a Saturday night and the hubby and I had enjoyed a cozy day at home together. I made a nice dinner, we watched a movie, I had some wine...all was right with the world.
We were especially happy because we were finally going to close escrow on the house we were selling. We had already moved out and were anxious to have the whole ordeal over and done with. It was scheduled to close in two days.
As we were getting ready for bed, our peace was shattered by a phone call from an old neighbor of ours.
I knew it was going to be bad when she started whispering into the phone, "There's 20 kids in front of our house and they're all headed over to your house!"
Dammit.
I told the hubs, we both threw on clothes, he grabbed his baseball bat, and we headed over to the house.
I have no idea what he thought he was going to do with the baseball bat.
We got there in ten minutes and as we drove through the community towards our house, we noticed lots of cars parked on the side streets and we both thought, "Huh. Wouldn't it be funny if they were all for our house?"
As we approached, we both spotted two kids in our front yard. I use "kids" loosely. They were somewhere between 17 and 23.
Now at that point, I was on the phone with the police because I had called them on the way over to let them know the situation and that there might be a possible break-in happening at our empty house. And I was fully prepared to be all calm and just park nearby and wait for the police to arrive, if that's what the hubby thought best to do.
Mr. Wonderful had other ideas. He punched the gas, zoomed into the driveway, screeched to a stop, and jumped out of the car, bat in hand.
So I did what any good wingman would do and just followed his lead. I had no idea what I was going to do when I jumped out of the car behind him, but I figured I'd have his back and work the rest out as things progressed.
Hubby started yelling at the two kids to get off our property and they pretty much just shuffled off. Well, that was easy.
Then Fred opened the front door.
And there were strobe lights and smoke and loud music...
And wall.
To wall.
Kids.
They were in the living room, in the hallway, on the stairs, they were everywhere. One had even climbed over the second floor stair railing and perched on the pot shelf, dangling his feet down like he was a flippin' Elf on a Shelf.
I was shocked into stunned silence. I couldn't comprehend what I was seeing.
For about five seconds.
Then all I could say was, "Oh. My. God." over and over.
Mind you, the police dispatcher was still on the phone. "There's fifty kids in my house! Fifty kids! There's fifty kids in my house!" I screamed into the phone like a crazy woman.
The dispatcher was all, "Yeah. Lots of kids. Got it. Now calm the hell down." She tried to get us to get back in our car and wait for the officers to get there and in retrospect, that's what we should have done. But the shock of it all and the adrenaline rushing though us controlled our actions, not common sense.
And oh, the stench of pot! You could smell it ten feet away from the front door.
Fred stood there with his bat hanging down in his hand, feeling pretty silly, because his bat wouldn't have done a whole lot of good if fifty kids decided to jump him for breaking up their party.
So he did what any sane adult would do when faced with a mob of kids they can't control. He started yelling. He told them to get the hell out of our house and that the cops were on their way, among other things.
"Cops" must have been the magic word because suddenly, they started pouring out of the house from every opening. Our neighbor told us later that it was like watching cockroaches scurry out from under a fridge. They came out of the front door, the back door, both side gates, and later we learned they were even climbing down from our upstairs balcony.
And me, being the good wingman that I am, stood outside the front door and lectured all of them as they came out.
"Who do you think you are? This is someone's home! What are you thinking?"
Fred told me later that he was yanking me back by my sleeve and I kept pulling away from him to go lecture another kid.
I really don't remember that. I just remember feeling so violated and indignant that these hooligans were partying in MY house. And they were brazen little f*ckers too! They looked at me like I had some nerve telling them to leave!
It was unbelievable.
Did I mention the police helicopter yet? About the time I was yelling at the dispatcher that there were fifty kids in our house for the 50th time, she ordered up the helicopter. It must have been quite a sight from the air to see all those kids pouring out of the house.
And do you know what else?
As we stood there lecturing kids and ignoring the police dispatcher telling us to get back in the car, MORE cars poured into the community. Like 30 more cars, at least. They cruised by, saw the commotion, and kept right on going, but they were on their way to the party!
I shudder to think how out of control the whole thing could have gotten. Thanks to our neighbor, we caught it pretty early in the festivities.
An officer got there probably five minutes or so after we did. ONE officer. I told the dispatcher there were FIFTY kids and ONE officer shows up! Thanks to us being lunatics though, we had already scared all the kids off so there wasn't much for him to do.
The cop investigated and found out the party, along with the community gate code, had been tweeted out and that's why so many kids had shown up to it.
The most amazing thing was that there was NO damage to the house. Can you believe that? There were lots of empty booze bottles and ash and footprints everywhere, but nothing broken.
The most depressing thing was that it looked like the rockin'-est party ever to be had in our home... and we weren't invited.
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| Seriously, this was our view from the front door. |
We spent the whole next day cleaning everything up and the hardest thing to do was getting the pot stench out. We Febrezed the shit out of the place and prayed it would cover the smell long enough for escrow to lose.
The house sale did go through that following Monday, thank God.
We picture the buyers getting a whiff of a faint pot smell every once in a while and saying, "Damn, thems some POT-smokin' mofos that used to live here!"
About a week after the sale closed, we got a letter in the mail from the Homeowner's Association notifying us that the gate code for the community had changed. It said "There was a break-in and the gate code was tweeted out and a party ensued."
So...cops, a party, police helicopter, lunatics yelling in the front yard, the HOA changing the gate code because of us...yup. That's going out with a bang.
Our new neighbors don't know what they're in for!
Party on dude!
Lori
P.S. This post brought to you by Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop and by the prompt: Write a post inspired by the word "shocked." And by the letter P and the number 50.
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