Ok... this is from my old blog, but I moved it over to this one. So really this happened back at the beginning of 2010... sometime... anyway, here it is.
After several hours of working I have FINALLY finished formatting my blog. That's right, I, Angela, have a blog. Why? Because if I am going to spend hours on the computer anyway, I might as well get something (semi)useful done. If nothing else, I am working on my writing skills and learning some basic coding, like this:
BOLD
italics
or I can just be lazy and use the settings they already have...
So anyway, now the question is what to write about at 3:00am? Yes, I may have stayed up until 3am working on this blog. In my defense, I stayed up until 2am yesterday doing nothing. At least this time I am doing something...
right?
Oh well.
Today I took my 13 and 15 year old brothers out with a bunch of their friends to play 007. Now if you haven't had the joy of playing this (which, I admit, I had not) let me tell you about it.
You start with 2 teams, we had me, in the van, and the 8 thirteen year olds running through the neighborhood, I know, genius right? So we set a course through the neighborhood, gave the runners a 1 minute head start, and then I set off to find them. The point of the game is to get from the starting point to the ending point without getting caught by the person in the car.
Now, I had never played this before so I had no clue what I was doing. I found all of them within the first 5 minutes... which brings me to the first thing we did wrong - the head start. You've got to give them at least 2 minutes, and by the time we did the last round I was driving through the whole course (about 5 minutes) and then setting off to find them.
So we started the next round. I was once again clunking through the neighborhood in my parents much-too-old astro-but-actually-GMC van, all by myself. I had given them 2 minutes this time which was much better, at least for them. I was actually fairly fond of the 5 minute game...
As I reach the first park along the course (there are 3) two of the girls come running out into the street. They jump in the van and tell me they almost got caught by the police!
SIDETRACK: The police station is in our neighborhood. Now, while 007 is NOT illegal, it is definitely not a favorite of the police. Something about a bunch of teenagers running in and out of people's yards through the whole neighborhood... On top of that, my parents went out to the desert to have a bonfire which left me to be the "responsible adult", thus taking the blame if the above 13 year olds got in trouble... YIKES!
So we drove a little ways away and then I dropped them off and gave them another head start before continuing my search. After a good 10 minutes of looking I happened to turn onto a random side street and there they were, all 8 of them! So, remember that course I mentioned earlier? Well the second thing we did wrong was NOT specify that you actually have to stay on the course! These brilliant little teenagers figured out that they could tell me to stay on one street and then they could just avoid it. Ugh. Don't ask how I let myself get dragged into this one.
So by this point I've learned a few things. The next important lesson is that you start with TWO people in the car, one driver and one passenger. I mean really, how am I supposed to drive slowly and conspicuously through a neighborhood crawling with cops, while using a flashlight to look for a bunch of kids who are hiding in bushes and trees??? I recruited my little brother, took the rest of them back to the starting point and we tried AGAIN!!!
This time actually worked! Thank goodness. Minus the 5 minutes where we couldn't find the last 2 girls and I was starting to worry (I hate being responsible for other people...) everything went smooth. We played one more time and then my other brother called (the 15 year old one). He and his friends had been watching a movie in the park (houses aren't good enough anymore I guess) and it was over and they wanted to play. So after some tricky maneuvering, I managed to somewhat organize 8 thirteen year olds and 7 fifteen and sixteen year olds, and dropped off all the important stuff (like the TV and the cookies...) at my house.
*A note about 13 and 15 year olds. Even though they are only 2 years apart, they are completely different, or so they think. As soon as we got the two groups together, they split up into ages. RIDICULOUS! So instead of a whole bunch of small groups we had 2 big ones. I was so worried that a cop was going to see this mob of teenagers and get us in trouble. By some miracle though, we managed to escape that adventure. (When I say miracle, I mean miracle. One of the kids decided that it was a good idea to jump the fence INTO someones backyard! MORE THAN ONCE! Geez! Some kids...)
Anyway, after driving around for 10 or 15 minutes and only finding a few people we decided to regroup and try again. This time was a huge hit, and a pretty good way to end the night, at least for the older kids... the younger ones did such a good job at staying away from us that we didn't see them even once. Oh well.
Finally, 2 hours later than I had planned, I said goodbye to my little hormonal friends (I would never wish either of those ages on anyone!) and headed home.
One last note about the brilliance of teenagers. My 15 year old brother was brought home at about 10:30pm by one of his friends parents. The first thing he says is, "I've got to tell you about our little adventure!" I didn't know what to expect, especially from him (he's a very smart kid, but he's not known for his common sense... Someday I might dedicate a whole post just to his many mishaps). Well long story short, they decided it would be a good idea to ding-dong-ditch a random house in the neighborhood at 10:15 PM! Of course the guy who owned the house saw a bunch of teenagers hiding in the bushes outside his house and called the police. Somehow they managed to escape a run in with anyone, but I was about ready to strangle him, all of them actually. I mean really, who does that?
Well, it has officially taken me 36 minutes to complete this and it is waaaayyyyy past bedtime... 4am is pretty bad, even for me. Goodnight! or good morning as the case may be...
