Toilet Paper

In the Little Town, it is a tradition for kids to "raid" on Halloween. Raiding used to be limited to the weekend of Halloween but it now begins on October 1 and ends on October 31. Raiding takes place on any given night of the week with no holds barred. Even my mother has participated in the art of raiding and shared some of her stories with me on the way back from the football game last weekend. So, it is nothing unusual to see toilet paper streaming from trees and saran-wrapped mailboxes or even vehicles the day after Halloween. I accept this and have doled out and cleaned up more than my fair share of toilet paper- strewn trees and yards.

With Kris now at college, I figured my trees were safe from the follies of kids with toilet paper this year. Not so. You see, my daughter came home for a weekend visit in the middle of October. She spent some time with some of her friends earlier in the day who planned on going raiding later that evening. Kris bowed out gracefully and came home before the girls went on their quest for victims. The next morning I awoke to rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls of cheap Dollar Store toilet paper dangling from the pecan tree branches. (Of course the damn dogs didn't bark when that was going on.) Kris helped me clean it up and we got a good laugh out of it. For those of you not familiar with raiding, it is supposed to be a good thing to be attacked in such a manner. Something about being popular!?

A coach, his wife (who is also employed with the school) and their teenage daughter live on the southwest corner of my block. If they got raided once they got raided ten times during the month of October. Obviously they don't suffer from OCD like we do because that damn toilet paper is still flapping in the trees. Every time the south wind blows, I make several passes in and around my yard picking up pieces of toilet paper. It's a good thing we don't have a homeowners association because the retired folks on my street would have a field day.

Hell, guess which direction the wind is blowing from today!? sigh.