Or
When the Truth Hits your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie,
That’s A-moral
Millie writes:
Speaking of Grand Theft Garden Gnome (as Mollie was last weekend), I had an interesting Facebook exchange the other day with one of the kids who used to hang out with our Sassy. Here it is in its entirety, though it has been “sanitized” for this family site:
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BA-Betty16 Lmao, F***ing garden gnomes >.< • CheechChong likes this.
CheechChong Down with the Gnomes
BA-Betty16 i colored one to look like a nazi ahaha
CheechChong lol if had 3 recycling cans of gnomes
BA-Betty16 If had?
CheechChong iv had lol sorry do u know what gnoming is?
BA-Betty16 like gnome hunting? when you steal people's garden gnomes?
CheechChong ya its fun as long as u dont get cough
BA-Betty16 he** yeah! ahaha
CheechChong got away with more the 36 in one night on one run
MillieButtinski That's awful. Srsly. People love their garden gnomes!
CheechChong sucks for ppl
MillieButtinski Stealing is stealing, yo.
BA-Betty16 people may love thier gnomes.. But i love their gnomes more. Ahaha
MillieButtinski Tsk. Kids today. :D Well, when they decide they love YOUR cell phones/MP3 players/laptops more, you'll be cool with that, right? Because "sucks for ppl" works both ways?
BA-Betty16 its a garden gnome.
MillieButtinski When we first moved to NE the first thing that happened was that somebody hopped the fence and stole a bunch of really decorative stuff the kids had given me out of the front yard (no, not garden gnomes, and it wasn't kids who did it, it was one of the tweakers who attend "meetings" at the church down the street). It was a really awful introduction to the neighborhood. We've also been broken-and-entered robbed before (not here), which sucks all out of proportion to the $ amount of what is taken. Anyway, I am done with this, it's getting creepy-parent-stalker-y and I'm sorry.
BA-Betty16 its just a gnome.
CheechChong its just a F***ING GNOME...s**t happens
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Charming, no?
No.
Okay, first a little background on Betty. She’s the same age as Sassy and Jack. She and Sassy were good friends in middle school and best friends their freshman year. Last year, when Sassy was having some serious health issues, Betty actually made it possible for her to attend school – Betty pushed Sassy to each class in a rolling office chair and carried her books for her. She’d meet us at the car every morning in the parking lot. Sassy never asked her to do this – she was just that kind of a girl. She had a 4.0 grade point average. She loved her kitty and her mom.
I have no clue who CheechChong is; all I can tell from his Facebook page is that he’s over 21 and pretty well illiterate.
I will be the first to admit that I should have just kept out of this, because even Millie knows that there’s no percentage in trying to preach to a teenager who isn’t yours. Oh, but . . . Betty was one of “our” teenagers, she had “friended” me on Facebook, surely I could jolly her out of this by pointing out that she might be hurting people, right? She hasn’t been around much lately, but it’s BETTY. I can talk to her.
Sanctimonious? You bet; but understandable, I think.
Today when I asked the kids about her, I found out that she’s drifted away from her former crowd. Betty lives with “her mom and some guy who might be her stepdad” now, and “hangs out with the Nazi kid at school” and – most heartbreaking – “used to be cool but that was BEFORE she started doing all the pot and whatever other drugs she could get hold of.” That beautiful little girl has become someone who can no longer tell the difference between right and wrong. She only uses her primitive brain now; her urges are all that matter.
I don’t know her whole story and I never will. I DO know that “friends” like CheechChong have convinced her that she has the right to take what she likes without worrying about anyone else. I DO know that the people who should have kept a very careful eye on Betty’s behavior and on the influences in her young life have failed her. I DO know that I will do anything I can to keep this from happening to one of my kids.
Because she's correct. It’s just 36 garden gnomes, right?
36 counts of trespassing.
36 opportunities to be arrested for theft.
36 chances to be tried as an adult and sent to jail for a very long time.
36 actions that will hurt people she doesn’t even know, just because she thinks it’s “cool.”
Some of the S**T that HAPPENS is preventable, Betty. I’m sorry someone didn’t prevent this from happening to you.
The best part is that this was all posted on Facebook. It's on the internet and will be there forever. Imagine if, one day, she pulls herself together and applies for a job. Her perspective employer does a background check and discovers this. Well, guess who isn't going to be getting a job?
ReplyDeleteThe internet has created a false sense of security. People think they can do whatever they want because there are no consequences. The rise of the social network has, however, completely removed that. All those things people do when they are young will come back to bite them. So girls, when your BF wants to make a sex tape with you, no matter how much he pleads, answer no. Otherwise, you'll be the next star of the adult youtube.
Exactly, Roger. Not only that, it will haunt her NOW. Whenever anything goes missing, everyone who knows her will suspect that she took it - and a certain percentage of the time they will be right.
ReplyDeleteThe worst of it isn't that everyone knows she's amoral - it's that she IS amoral but SHE doesn't know it.
That's just awful. What must have happened to that kid... The thing people don't seem to realize sometimes is that, no matter how cool or fun or minor you think your offense may be, you've still made it so that someone will always feel a little less safe.
ReplyDelete