I used to play with them...

"She used to play with us."

Said little Lily who lives next door. Beautiful little black girl whose family comes from Kenya. She has long black braids that reach the lowest part of her back, and long skinny twig legs that she uses to pedal bikes she's stolen.

Her family has always disturbed me but I try my hardest not to be judgmental when they would talk to me about their life choices.

"Oh, your Dad has 4 sister wives? That's neat."

There are no less than six kids that live in that house. They all have different moms who take turns either staying at the house, or at an apartment when they aren't all getting along.

"Hey Ishmal, I haven't seen your uhhhh...sister? Is she your sister kinda? Anyway I haven't seen Lily in a while."

"Lily and her Mom don't like the lady of the house so they stay at an apartment so she can have some space."

The few times I have seen a woman outside of the boundaries of the front door, which they leave open, she has pretty much sprinted from me. I tried to make conversation with one, since she was sitting on my driveway uninvited when I came out to take out the trash.

"Hi! How are you? I just made some cookies, do your kids want some?"

She gives me a look of terror and judgement at my cleavage, then says, "Dinosaur. In street"

I look out into the street for a stegosaurus and see her unsupervised kids, wearing shorts and boots without laces in the heat of summer, poking something lifeless in the middle of the street with a rake.

I drop the trash and run out there to save it, whatever it is.

"Ishmael, Lily, Franchuk, Kid whose name I don't know, Shoeless, get back. Move out the way. GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY."

It was a horny toad. A horny toad with a couple of rake holes in it.


"You guys need to not kill small animals because that is not nice. Here's a dirty spiderman ball I found in my garage. Why don't you kick it around in your own yard and leave it in my yard when you're done."

These kids need guidance. Always. They range in age from 2-9 and never have an adult around. They crave adult attention so much that it breaks my heart and makes husband with one T want to move.

They have no boundaries. I'll pull into my garage and hit one of them on the head with my car door because they come on in and wait for me to get out. If I try to take the kids into the front yard, they immediately show up and what was supposed to be a leisurely play in the front yard leads to me babysitting uncountable kids.

"Get your foot out of our pond"

"Get out of our garden."

"yes it's an Iphone, put it down. I just wiki'd something inappropriate."

"I WILL CUT YOU IF YOU DON'T GET OFF MY HUSBAND'S MONDO GRASS"

Adrian asked them about the fact that they all have the same dad and different moms. One kid that's only there 1/6th of the time responded matter-of-factly with:

"I think my other Dad's dead"

When Adrian's eyes got as big as saucers, the kid looked at him like, "what the hell's the big deal with a dead Dad?"

Adrian walked over to me and sat me down to talk. It didn't last 6 words.

"I.never.want.daddy. to.....to.... to..... WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

"Okay kids whichever one of your Dad's died, I'm sorry. Get off of my table and give Ellis back her shoes and go home."

Some days I would be in an extra giving mood and I would treat them like my own. I sat in the driveway with Ishmal and talked with him for 45 minutes about how hard it is to take care of the 2 year old sister(ish). I gave him a capri sun and played four square with them for 2 hours. I sang with Lily when she helped me vacuum out my car. I let them feed our fish. I gave them both the bikes that Adrian had outgrown and secretly left Ishmal a pair of new shoes because his toes were poking out the front of his other ones. (Even though I said I wouldn't. Sorry Husband with one T, if you read this) Anytime I make cookies or cakeballs, I tell Adrian to take some over to them. I've never once heard a thank you from any of them. Or their parents (maybe parents isn't the right word).

I get it that they're moderately annoying, rude, and inconsiderate but I really started to understand their evil when their Grandmother was there visiting from Kenya for the summer.

She didn't speak or look at me but sat in the garage all day sweating profusely and wearing more clothes than should be allowed in Saskatchewan, much less 110 degree heat in Oklahoma. She was terrified of everything. Which doesn't make sense to me because she LIVES IN KENYA. You're going to be scared of my guinea pig and some silly putty when you get malaria and lion bites on an annual basis?

She was watching another baby I have only rarely seen there, who is around 18 months or so. Her identity and relation to the homeowner are unsurprisingly unknown. The baby wandered out to see me when I checked the mail. I picked her up in the middle of the street and walked her back to the garage. Grandma looked at me like I had a machete and I tried to look kind and nice as I set the child back in the garage and pointed to the road. "Baby Hanna was in the street". She rubbed some sweat out of her eyes and spoke to Hanna in their language. Hanna kicked her in the shin and ran back out into the street. Grandma did nothing so I went to get her and at that moment the rest of the kids meandered back into the yard to play with my pitbull. Grandma saw Sable the pitbull and started bawling, shaking, and heaving. She was begging her kids to come in the garage, away from the animal. (Who, keep in mind, didn't even bark or get off the couch when someone broke into our house while we were sleeping.)

I was trying to tell the kids to go and comfort her and I would take the dog inside but they just laughed and laughed and yelled and teased the Grandma.

They went and got her out of the garage and dragged her kicking and screaming to my dog, who was now a shivering puddle of confusion. I screamed at them to leave her alone and let her go and ended up pushing them off of her and taking her back to the garage while trying to assure her in a language she didn't understand that the dog was harmless and I was sorry for scaring her and that I wasn't a raper.

Back to the beginning. Why "She used to play with us" was said:

We walked to the park in our neighborhood the first nice day we had this year. Adrian rode his bike and Ellis and I walked with our dog, Charlie. (yorkie, not pitbull). Of course there were 12 unsupervised kids playing at the pond when we got there, including the neighbors. Lily told me she loved my hair and sat next to me to play with Charlie. When Ellis ran back over to make sure I wasn't being attacked Lily hugged her too hard and knocked her down. So I grabbed Lily back by the back of the hair and rubbed her face in the gravel.

Not really, but I wish. Lily was oblivious to what happened and ran back to the dock. I saw one of her brothers holding a toy gun and pointing it at another kid, telling him to jump in the nasty disgusting pond or he would shoot him. The kid jumped, crying. A three year old brother was standing in the pond, in what appeared to be brand new shoes. Another couple of kids were in the trees by the pond along with Ishmal and I could smell more evil. Adrian was begging me not to intervene and to just let him play at the park with Ellis.

A 13 year old girl ran by crying and screaming she was gonna call the police. She was pretty and normal and I felt compelled to be on her side.

Lily ran back over and said (I swear) "YOU DON'T CALL THE POPO. YOU DON'T CALL THE POPO. THEY'RE JUST EGGS."

I asked Lily what she was talking about and she said they had broken some duck eggs they found in the nest and what was the big deal.

The 13 year old normal girl said they had done it before and her mom had bought her an incubator and she was able to save one of the chicks and released him back into the pond. But they had broken these eggs too early and she couldn't do anything to save them. She was bawling. She asked to use my cell phone to call her mother, who just happened to be the President of the homeowners association. At this point, Adrian was done. He gave me the look that said, "Fuck being nice, Mom. Give it to em"

I felt like I was in the middle of a made for TV Disney movie starring Debbie Ryan as the pretty young child egg doctor who would change the ways of her neighborhood and they would end the movie by playing soccer and doing a synchronized dance with the Kenyan terrors to a song entitled "We're All Here in America to Make Everything Better!".

But I'm Courtney Love in this situation and I don't belong in a damn TV movie and these kids were going to suffer through my judgment.

"LISTEN HERE, ALL SEVENTEEN OF YOU. YOU'RE ALL HORRIBLE KIDS. HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE KIDS. PUT THAT GUN AWAY AND DON'T BRING IT OUT AGAIN OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL DRAG YOUR UGLY LITTLE ASS TO YOUR MOMS HOUSE AND IF SHE DOESN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT THEN I WILL.  AND YOU DON'T WANNA SEE WHAT I'LL DO. STEP AWAY FROM THE TREE AND AWAY FROM THE NEST AND IF I SEE YOU WALK IN THAT DIRECTION I SWEAR ON EVERYTHING THAT IS HOLY I WILL TAKE YOU TO THE POLICE STATION AND THEY WILL PUT YOU IN KOREAN JAIL...................................................................................WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE? HOW CAN YOU ALL BE SO HORRIBLE TO USE GUNS TO FORCE KIDS INTO THE WATER AND TO KILL BABY EGGS AND TO MAKE THIS GIRL CRY. I HATE ALL OF YOU. IIIIIIIIIIII HHHHHAHAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEE ALLLLLLLLL OOOOOFFFFFFFFF YOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUU GOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMEEEEEE. I'M FOLLOWING ALL OF YOU HOME RIGHT NOW. GO. YOU'RE ALL AWFUL"

By the time I finished screaming incoherently at them, it was awkwardly silent. The kid with the gun stuffed it into his sweaty sweatpants and muttered that he was going "to put it away anyway". The kid who had been bullied into jumping into the pond whispered to me that he was okay and it was all going to be okay.


Lily and Ishmal looked at me like I had just broken our alliance and was now loyal to Kony.

Nobody was moving so I yelled at them again to GO.

Then I put on my batman backpack and grabbed my yorkie and followed them home like the badass that I am.




and that's why I don't "play with you anymore", Lily.