R is for Responsibility

One of the conventions we had at the hotel I worked at (in the spa) was in 2003 and it was for Family Health Workers. One of the clients I worked on (as a massage therapist) was telling me horror stories about out of control children. She told me that most experts agreed that the abuse of the 90's was overindulgence.

I told her my horror stories...

My husband was a first assistant of greens at the resort next to the one where I worked. He was in charge of 18 of the 36 holes of golf they provided. I remember one Christmas, he had to go in to set the computer for the watering. They weren't actually open that day and he left around 8am saying he'd be back by 10a. He didn't get back until 2p. Some yay-hoo got a new ATV for Xmas and decided to try it out. On the golf course. The person shredded one of the greens and my husband got to spend his Xmas day fixing it.

Then there's the kid they actually caught. This kid had broken a window and was ramming the garage door with a tractor, trying to get it out, when they caught him. This was on one of D's days off, but since it was a piece of equipment they used on his course, he had to go in. I went with him and the crew had the boy on the office, waiting for the cops to show up. Shortly after we showed up and before the cops got there, the boy's father had shown up. The boy was 13 and definitely old enough to know better but there was his lawyer father shouting at everyone. The dad was threatening to have us all arrested for unlawful imprisonment and kidnapping of his son.

I looked at the man incredulously and said, "He destroyed a tractor and the garage door to the shop. They caught him red-handed. That's got to be several thousand dollars worth of damage and you're threatening us?! No wonder you're kid's such a schmuck!" At this point, Dave asked me to wait for him outside. The kid ended up leaving in a police cruiser with his father right behind them in his giant SUV.

The worst was this incident:
My playgroup's leader, T lived in the golf villas (same as the family I just told you about). She had taken her daughter to our playgroup and her husband M was home from work with the flu. He heard some shrieking and thought T had come home and their daughter was having a meltdown. He went into the garage (in his boxers) and opened the garage door to help T. What he saw was not his family.

A woman with her head bleeding profusely was screaming and trying to get into her car which was parked in the driveway next door. She looked at the front door of the house she was parked at, screamed louder and ran across the street. Well, across the street is just dirt and scrub and a tree. M looked at the door of the house, same as the screaming, bleeding woman and sees K coming out, holding a tire iron! K is the 34 year old man living with his father in that house next to M's.

M rushes over to the woman and starts calling for help. Now other neighbors are coming out and M yells at K to just go back inside. One of the other neighbors calls 911. K disappears and the woman is taken to the hospital where she barely survives her head wounds.

Here's what had happened. K ordered a "masseuse" (as the reporter called her. Tucson is extremely massage savvy, and knows better then to call a legitimate massage therapist a masseuse). According to the reporter, they "couldn't agree on a price" at which point K went to the garage, got a tire iron and started beating the woman senseless. After M came to the rescue, K took off. This genius ran up to the golf course's club house and hid in a closet where they put golf bags. Was pretty easy for the cops to locate him. Especially since a bunch of people saw him hide there. (And honestly, here's one of the things about this that I don't get. With the money this guy's family has and the proximity of having the Mexican border less then 2 hours away.... Stupid. Just sayin')

His dad bailed him out.

I don't know about y'all but if you were my 34 year old, no-job-havin' son, living in my house and you almost kill a hooker (or anyone for that matter) in my house - there is NO bail for you!!

K has had problems in the neighborhood before. He was notorious coke-head and had run his car into the edge of someone's house about a month before his attempted murder shenanigans. The neighbors already wanted him out and after this latest run in with the law, the all signed petitions and K had to move away. The woman was paid off and nothing ever came of it as far as charges against K.

Again, I bet this guy's dad has been bailing him out his whole life. I mean, what's it going to take?? Does he actually have to kill someone before he's forced to take responsibility for his actions? I just. Don't. Get it.

I see people like the Hilton's and the Lohan's and the Spear's and I feel like it's just rewarding bad behavior. I wonder if it will ever end. I may not be the best at closely monitoring what the boys watch. No, that's not true, I do monitor what they watch but my husband likes to watch the news and how do you monitor that? We answer any questions they have about what they see and we even provide some commentary about things they don't ask about. It's so hard to know what they will hear and what will be filtered. We also, mainly, try to lead by example.

Trying to raise good citizens, Ruth!