I'm officially old

Last night we called the police. Twice.

The parents of a sullen and mostly invisible 16-year old girl who lives beside us went away for the long weekend - but they left her behind. And apparently she has a lot of friends, all of whom descended upon the house last night for an unforgettable end of summer bash.

It kept us up, fuming and complaining to each other, until close to 3:00am.

It's not so much the party that bothered me. In fact I didn't even care all that much about the noise. It's when I saw someone pissing on the side of my house that I got a little pissed myself. Eventually the area between our house and theirs became a communal bathroom for every single staggering, nauseous little idiot who couldn't be bothered to use the washrooms inside the house. Yes, it seems boys well under the legal drinking age can't hold their liquor. Shocking.

This morning it looks like a crime scene out there. Empty bottles and cans of beer littering lawns, vomit soaking into the mud, shattered glass on the streets, and peaches, obviously used as projectiles, smashed on the sidewalk and on neighbouring driveways.

To give the little hooligans credit, they're out they're cleaning up right now, but it never should have come to this in the first place. And we all know they're only cleaning up in a vain attempt to erase the night and spare the sullen, invisible girl from the wrath of her parents, lest they find out about her little shin-dig.

The arrogance is what stuns me. The notion that they think it's okay for them to roar well into the night, puke on other people's property, smash bottles and then happily stagger home.

I can't bear that they think this is okay. That it's acceptable and there are no consequences beyond a little cleaning and a big headache.

UPDATE:

It's like the gods of justice heard our prayers. The sullen girl's aunt and uncle showed up this morning while the cleaning crew was still hard at work.

It got ugly. The aunt angrily (and loudly) kicked everyone out of the house while the sullen girl hurled obscenities at her shocked and raging aunt.

Eventually the police showed up. Three cruisers worth of them (which is great - they didn't bother to come last night when dozens of drunk teenagers were stumbling about the neighbourhood breaking stuff, but they show up in full force this morning when the crowd has dwindled down to a handful of kids and an irate set of relatives.

To make a long story short, the sullen girl was made to sweep the streets under the watchful eye of a beefy cop while she back-talked him (BACK-TALKED A COP????). The Aunt and Uncle were asked to leave, since their presence was only making sullen girl freak out.

So all's quiet for now.

My advice to sullen girl, if she asked, would be to soak up the daylight and fresh air while she can because my guess is she won't be seeing much of it once Mom and Dad get home.

As My Beloved and I lay in bed last night talking about the party, I realized we sounded more like someone's parents than people who might actually have a shot at attending a party like that. It was a little sobering.

But when our conversation lazily shifted to our mutual need for more bran and maybe even dried fruit, I knew we'd officially turned a corner.

We. Are. Old.