Lawyer Up

Remember my ode to neighbor Paul a few weeks ago? One of the things I love about him is his utter okay-ness with my son and his son destroying his lawn with sports. Over the summer, they carved out a baseball diamond in his poor grass. Rather than punish them (like I would), Paul nailed up a Wrigley Field “Watch for foul balls” sign on his garage.

But as the air crisps and the leaves change, the boys have switched their attention to football. The sport of kings? Sure. I discovered this by way of the makeshift goal posts clamped to our fence, constructed from PVC pipe.

Luca is now in 100% football mode, or as the early 2000’s would say, Beast Mode. He even joined his school’s flag football team (more on that in a later post). And with this change, his video game tastes have changed.

Over dinner with the cousins a few Saturdays ago, Luca broached the subject of buying the newest Madden Xbox game. He was a little gun shy, because all Xbox games are obscenely expensive and he was entering the time of the year when “Your birthday is coming” is the way I, uh, punt those conversations away.

Luca asked if we could come to a deal to get the game early. Little did he know, I was enjoying a tasty bourbon and was lubricated enough to buy him anything.

I offered the game in exchange for picking up Grover’s poop for the rest of the year. Luca began crying because he felt he was being dealt a bad deal.

“No no no, you don’t understand. That was my opening offer. Now we negotiate. You and I go back and forth until we have a deal.”

Luca wasn’t quite sure what to do, so cousin Finn offered to act as his proxy. Finn was a tough negotiator because the idea of picking up dog poop sickened him on every level.

Elijah stepped in for me. I was happy because Eli once negotiated me into buying him 4 pounds of candy from Amazon.com.

The kids went ‘round and ‘round, eventually landing on poop clean-up for the next eight weeks, with harsh penalties for skipping doodie duties. I wasn’t really paying attention, as I was deep in my own negotiations with my brother over whether a second bourbon was a terrible idea or an awful idea.

Deal done, we went home and bought the game. Eli did us the favor of writing up a completely un-legal document. If you look closely, you’ll see Luca purposely misspelled his name in case we have to go to court.

Skunks

The purpose of this blog is to give Elijah and Luca a semi exaggerated snapshot of their lives growing up. It makes sense that 99.9% of the posts are related to them and their bodily fluids. Occasionally, I like to expand the aperture a bit to include neighbors, friends and other bedroom community silliness.

This is one of those silliness…es.

We hit the jackpot when it comes to neighbors. Our northern border is occupied by our very best friends, Lexa and Chris and their daughters, whose names I refuse to learn how to spell correctly. The fact that Lexa drives Diana to get her eyeball shots every single month sums her up perfectly. Chris is the mellowest, yoga-est instigator you’ve ever met. His laid back, dulcet voice recently convinced me to ride a skateboard for the first time in my life, down Evanston’s largest hill. More on him later.

Our neighbors to the south are a hive of the cutest humans on the planet. The children sing gleeful songs on their back porch at 6am. I have never seen mom Kelly frown once. Ever. Paul is a dad from a bygone era. If I look over the fence, he is either building something for his children or teaching them how to throw a perfect spiral. He’s almost flawless. Almost.

Paul harbors an unnatural hatred for our local skunk population. Every skunk in the Chicagoland area got the message that Evanston is filled with pacifists, so hundreds of them strut across our yards nightly with Pepe Le Pew like abandon.

Where I merely request aloud they refrain from spraying our geriatric dog, Paul fights them with every tool in his arsenal. His yard is littered with lemons and limes, rumored to be a deterrent. Given how fat they all are, I assume the skunks are using them to make pies. Paul also purchased a gigantic flashlight to scare them off, powerful enough to illuminate Saturn from his back door.

Because we are bored and our children no longer want to hang out with us, Chris and I have made it our mission to torment Paul, skunk-style.

A year ago, we bought a stuffed skunk and placed it in the middle of Paul’s yard after dark. With the help of Kelly, we filmed Paul attempting to scare off the inanimate critter. Hilarity ensued.

Okay, time out. Yes, I know there are real problems in the world. Yes, I know it’s only because of our upper middle-class privilege that we can engage in such stupidity. But please let me have this.

When this year’s skunkvasion hit, Chris wanted to up the ante. A stuffed skunk no longer gave us the same thrill.

So we purchased two adult sized skunk costumes and stood in Paul’s yard dressed head to toe in hot black fur. When Paul looked out his back door, he saw two six foot tall rodents drinking bourbon and playing croquet. Why bourbon? Why croquet? Partly because Chris is a poet. Mostly because we hatched the plan while drinking.

Paul reacted the way anyone would: by pelting us with lemons and limes.

Now, when Paul points out skunks to his youngest (and more adorable) daughter, she responds, “Those aren’t skunks. Skunks are Rick.”