I only have a few seconds -- my sister is on her way over to pick me up for work (since I don't have the time, just insert your own version of a rant here about how my family has only two cars and how whenever I have something legitimate to do like GO TO WORK I never have access to them). But I wanted to get this in before too much time passes and I don't think it's as hilarious.

That said, OH MY GOD. I live in this neighborhood that's pretty small -- I'd say we have twenty to thirty houses, all nice but not too large, and the whole of the neighborhood is nestled in by some trees and there's a creek that runs through part of it, blah blah blah. No streetlights or fancy brick signs or garrish yard decorations or enourmous windows that reveal spotless double staircases -- nothing like that. We're a modest neighborhood. So recently, the older couples have been dying or moving out, and we've got a handful of families with young boys. One family has four boys, one across the street has two, and there's one or two elsewhere -- I dunno, you know how boys are, they just materialize.

Usually they are in bushes or rolling down hills or grass-surfing on skateboards with no wheels -- generally putting themselves in danger. Sometimes you'll be coming home from dinner somewhere and you'll get out of the car and hear a lot of rustling across the street as they dart from bush to bush, rolling or sliding or whatever it is they do, covered in army make-up and wearing camouflage. The number of weird "don't let the adults see you" games is large, I'm sure. Only now that I'm one of those adults do I understand that it was never that, as kids, we had avoided being seen -- just that the adults were too amused or exhausted or baffled to acknowledge us.

This gaggle of boys is a little older now -- I'd say the oldest ones are maybe thirteen, tops -- but they're still doing lots of weird boy stuff. I get home today from going out with a friend -- home in time to get dressed for work -- and the doorbell rings. Mom was napping, so I answered. Usually I am reluctant to answer the door -- if the doorbell rings and I don't already know who's on the other side, it's usually someone I'm not interested in seeing. That's the way people get roped into buying Bibles or becoming a Jehovah's Witness (don't think I don't know these things).

But I answer anyway, and when I open the door, two of these boys are standing there in shorts, helmets, and giant tshirts with pillows stuffed underneath. One of them has a cup of money in his hand. Without much explanation, they launch into a speech about how, for a nominal fee, I can wack them with a baseball bat -- 25 cents for one head hit, 50 cents for a head and stomach hit, 75 cents for two stomachs and a head hit, and $1 for two head hits and two stomach hits. They had something sharpied onto their shirts -- something like "HIT HERE" with arrows pointing in toward the belly button.

I offered a polite "I think I'm going to pass" with a chuckle, thinking of the dinner conversation they might have tonight with their mother ("That redheaded girl across the street hit us with a bat for a whole dollar!"), but upon reflecting I wish I'd said yes, just to see what they were really up to.

The only thing that really puzzles me, though, is why there was already so much money in the cup. Is there something about the rest of my neighbors that I don't know?