Oh, the fun never ends

After sitting home all day due to my car vandalism, I took Tyler outside to play after his nap. He got to play while I got to spend an hour vacuuming glass out of my car. Mind you, I looked like a moron, because the cop had told me to wear gloves as he would try to get back that day to fingerprint the car. After that fun (which I know I STILL have glass lingering) I got to sit on the phone with the insurance company for 45 minutes. I know, my life is just fascinating.

Tyler was busy playing with his tricycle and various other toys when the neighbors across the street started to argue. Sadly enough, this is fairly normal, so as long as Tyler isn't paying attention to it I try to ignore it myself. I couldn't help but overhear though (as they were YELLING) something about the mother (if you can call her that) having signed a document stating that someone was at work when something occurred and now she's finding out that they were lying. What i can assume is that she provided an alibi for someone and it was a complete lie. Great lesson to teach your kids, huh?

Anyway, it started to get really loud and people were cursing so I tried to calmly gather Tyler's toys to bring him in. Like I said, I was trying NOT to stare, but I could help it when the mom frantically screams out "call the cops" TWICE. As I grabbed Tyler (literally yanked him up off his tricycle) to go inside I see people fighting and lunging at each other and screaming. I ran in, locked the doors, and called 911. The operator of course starts asking me a million questions, which I can hope she already had someone on the way before she bothered with these questions, but I'm thinking this is NOT the case. She asked me a few times "well, why did you call, are there weapons?". Umm, when someone screams "call the cops" and you are outside with your 3-year-old, you don't stop to inquire IF they are going to shoot someone or something. DUH! And no, I don't know their race or who lunged at who. They were in a garage across the street and it was already dark! She even went so far as to ask me to go outside and see if anyone looked hurt???? Sure, and put myself in danger while my son sits inside alone. No thanks.

Over 20 minutes later the cops show up, and of course the neighbors are already over their ridiculous fight and are back to their "regular" arguing and smoking their cigarettes. The cops (FOUR of them) where there for at least an hour. Never once did they come to speak to me. And nothing seemingly happened to anyone involved, so I'm assuming no one admitted anything.

I'm sooooooooooo ready to get out of this neighborhood. This is NOT the kind of area we thought we were moving to. When you grow up in a household where the kids don't even OWN keys because it's so rare for your parents to lock the house, this is quite a shock. I don't want Tyler to grow up thinking that it's normal to see your neighbors outside yelling and cursing at each other. Nor for him to be asking me questions like "why did the rude people yell?". It just breaks my heart. I know that this is fairly common, but I want to avoid it if at all possible. And I don't like feeling unsafe. I should not have to double-check all the windows every night before bed, set the alarm, and then worry. Maybe it's just pregnancy hormones, but I'm starting to get very weirded out by this neighborhood. Coming from the girl who's never even had so much as a speeding ticket, having to call the cops twice in one day is unprecedented. And totally uncool.

In case you hadn't heard enough about this incident, I was able to get a glass company out today and thankfully they were able to replace the glass for about $230, and the door frame is fine. It's not pretty, but that's okay with me. Since our GPS was about $300, it's not worth filing a claim, so I guess we at least get to keep insurance out of this, and we walk away losing $530, countless hours of time lost, and ugly door trim. Not too bad, but something I hopefully won't have to relive in the future. I just keep trying to remind myself that it could have been FAR worse.

As a funny aside, the cop showed up an hour AFTER the glass guy was here to take fingerprints. So, that won't be very helpful, huh? Good thing they told me they'd be here YESTERDAY! I guess I should just be happy they are even following up on this at all. With any luck they'll eventually track the guys down. They did use a stolen debit card (not mine) at the McDonald's down the street.