A Thugless Easter

Well... Thursday morning I received an unexpected email titled "guardrail congregations" that read as follows:

Good afternoon, Mr. Baker. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. What you described can certainly be addressed by our officers and while we may have missed the offenders the night you called, I encourage you to call any time that this activity is occurring. In the meantime, I will add this area to our night-time patrol checks as well.

Again, please call when this occurs to increase our chances of arriving in a timely manner and successfully addressing the issue.

Best regards,

Chief Rich Ciampa
Morrisville Borough Police Department

Isn't that interesting? A response from the chief himself.

I ran a copy over to our front office, where the leasing manager told me she didn't know about the thugs in question but our one maintenance guy Ralph knows all about them.

Given our universe's penchant for irony though, the thugs have not shown up in any significant capacity since.

That figures.

There are only two tragedies in life: not getting what you want—and getting it.

— Oscar Wilde

By the end of the week, Athennia and I had increased our evening-walk mileage to 2.5; and I have to admit that the neighborhood behind us is remarkably clean, quiet, and full of polite and sensible people once we just get a block or two away from all the filth that dwells on our street.

The houses are small and too close together; and the sidewalks are all disintegrating due to being decades overdue for replacement due to weather and tree roots.

But it's pleasant enough to forget that we're in Morrisville for an hour...

On Easter Sunday we headed over to my parents' house for dinner and an egg-hunt.

Riley and I hid eggs for Olivia and Hannah; then I went out and hid a few more for Riley.

And then the hunt was on!

Liv and Hannah made out like bandits: Six-figure candy salaries, for sure!

But Kelly taught them about that oh-so-civilized concept of taxation, and skimmed her 40% cut right off the top...

Hannah's expression is the correct response!

(In actuality, Kelly was just taking away the candy that had melted beyond recognition after sitting out in the sun too long because she and the girls took six years to get over here.)

Then my dad grilled London broil specially for Steve—who decided to cut dinner out altogether and spend the day in the E.R. with abdominal pain instead.

But we had a lovely dinner with my parents, Kelly and the girls, and Uncle Roy.

Then we got stuck behind this guy on the drive home...

It didn't take long at all to deduce that "4EVER5" refers to the speed of his vehicle.

...In centimeters per year.

But we finally dodged him, only to encounter another vanity plate in Langhorne...

This one was tougher to decrypt:

We got home to find that either Jeff and Lillian or Keith and Rosie had "helpfully" brought in a bunch of packages for Ruth and brought them halfway up the stairs...

I considered putting them all back outside but decided against it because it was Easter (and I'm lazy).

We still went for our evening walk though; and I suspect that Jesus might not be the only one rising from the dead this year...

I was SO tempted to take this thing out of the trash and leave it just outside this house's front door for the owners to find in the morning; but the guy who lives here is usually out playing with his dog and is always nice to us when we walk by, so my conscience forbade me from doing so.

Would've been one hell of a prank though!

Happy Easter, haunted scarecrow-doll-whatever-thingy.