Tonight shortly after 8pm, a young lady and her mother showed up on our front porch to "apologize for making a stupid decision" and gave me more hope for the future. This post will detail what took place on 3/20/2021.

Backstory

Prior to reading this, you need to know the following.... we have 2 boys that are now 6 and 7 years old that we adopted last year via DFCS. Thanks to their biological parents, they had already experienced gun violence and multiple run-ins with the police before they moved into our home. They are both scared of "strangers" coming onto our property because they have been pulled out of homes in the middle the night multiple times; however, they are always ok with new people stopping by after we give them forewarning. Over the past few years, we have done our best as parents to begin drilling into their young brains that actions have consequences and that they are responsible for their decisions. Thanks to a local teen, we were able to show them a "dumb teenager decision" and some of the consequences that entails.

Teenager's make Dumb Decisions

Around 3pm, I loaded my boys in the truck to do something I hate, heading to the outlet mall. This specific pilgrimage was to purchase Easter outfits for them per their great grandmother's letter she'd sent earlier in the week. While we proceeded down the driveway, I explained the purpose of our trip, and where we were heading. They got excited and immediately hit me with the 100 questions: "Can we buy toys too, can we go to the Dollar Store, can we eat at 5 Guys, is Officer Shane going to be patrolling the outlet mall today, etc." You understand the "100 questions" part if you have kids. For those that do not live in Woodstock (GA), Officer Shane is a local legend with the Woodstock Police Department that we often see out and about in our community. He has been instrumental in helping us re-educate our kids on the role of police after their rough upbringing. The boys see him as their friend and we are 100% ok with that...

As we got closer to the end of our gravel driveway, we noticed a small blue sedan parked at the end with the driver's side door open and decided to stop about 50 yards away. It is not an uncommon occurrence for us to find someone on our driveway. Many folks use our driveway to stop and check out their Google Maps and/or to turn around because they went the wrong way. However, we then saw a female teenager kneeled down messing with something just off the side of our driveway in the taller grass. As soon as she looked up and saw us, she darted back to her vehicle, reversed quickly out of our driveway, and sped off without a 2nd nervous look back. I then pulled the truck to where she had been, asked the boys to stay inside, and went to investigate. When I peeled back the dead grass covering something colorful, I found a still cold 12 pack of TRULY along with a 5th of Pink Whitney and a 5th of Malibu Strawberry Caribbean Rum in a black plastic bag. Apparently these are the high class consumption choices of the modern teenager vs the Bartles & Jaymes, Aftershock, and Natty Light choices from my generation. I immediately started laughing and gave her some credit for her creativity. Growing up in rural South Carolina, we Friday Night Partied at the intersecting of dirt roads, and didn't need to hide our stash, we just kept it in the cooler in our trunks.

Of course the boys in the truck have now unbuckled and are about to lose their you know what to get out and see what I had unearthed. Instead, I asked them if they saw which way she went? They said yes and we loaded back into the truck. We live on just over 4 acres and have multiple neighborhoods in our area. Based on the type of vehicle she was driving and her attire, I assumed she lived in one of them. We drove around for about 10mins to see if we could locate her car to no avail, I then called my husband to tell him what happened. He and I both laughed and said he was going to come down to the road to pickup the booze. We met him at the driveway, carried the beverages up to the house, and I left a note in its place thinking they would come back later to collect their stash. It read, "Don't Trespass again..."

At this point, I am less worried about the alcohol and more concerned about random people coming onto our property to hide things without regret. I also immediately saw this as a parenting moment for my boys. What are the consequences for the Pink Whitney perpetrator?

After our successful trip to the outlet mall, we came back home to find the note has not been disturbed. Joe and I then did some yardwork while the boys played outside. After starting dinner, I decided to walk back down to the driveway to see if they'd attempted to collect anything.

As I walked down the driveway, I noticed the same blue compact sedan creeping down the road and tried to act like I had not seen them. I then acted like I was checking the mail. They stopped in the road just down the street at the end of our neighbor's gravel drive. I tried to imagine the "WTF do we do now" conversation that had to be taking place inside the vehicle. After closing the mailbox, I looked up, made eye contact with the young female driver, noticed the other male passengers in her car, and casually motioned for them to pull into our driveway. When it comes to fight, flight, or freeze, this girl chose to flee. However her Honda was not quick enough to escape without giving me ample time to grab some license plate information.

Had she decided to pull over, I likely would have requested that she call her parents to assist her in collecting her stash that she had left on our property. We then would have waited patiently for them to arrive while her passenger nervously pondered their own fates. Instead, I decided to call the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office to report what had taken place.

Upon contacting the non-emergency line at the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office, I was pleasantly greeted, explained what had taken place, and was told that a Deputy would be contacting me shortly to take a statement. A few minutes later, I got a phone call from Deputy Martin, a very professional and pleasant female police officer. After detailing my story, we made jokes about being dumb teenagers ourselves, and the obvious "girly beverages" we discovered. I told the Deputy that I had no desire to press any charges but wanted to make sure her parents were aware of what had taken place. I would hope that some stranger would do the same for me/Joe if they ever discovered one of our kids making a dumb decision. The Deputy said she was going to run the plates, either call or stop by the residence, and would follow up with me later. I thanked her for her time and went back to dinner with my family.

About 10-15mins later, my phone rang. It was Deputy Martin. She said that the plates did come back as someone from our area, matched my vehicle description, and judging by the owner listed, she assumed it was the girl's father. When she called the number listed on the registration, her assumptions were confirmed. The gentleman on the phone was apparently caught off guard about his daughter's actions since she told them she was "spending the night with some girlfriends." He was not pleased and told Deputy Martin that he would be dealing with this to make sure it did not happen again. I thanked Deputy Martin, we laughed once again, and ended our chat. After hanging up, I told my family that the parents of the young lady in our driveway were not happy and that she would likely be facing some tough consequences like "being grounded for 6 months." The boys reacted with shock and horror, "grounded for 6 months!?" "Yes boys and that's better than going to jail." Queue more looks of shock and horror.... I then joked with my husband, Joe, that if her parents really took this seriously, they would force her to come back and apologize the next day. About 30mins later with it pitch black outside and no exterior illumination turned on, our doorbell rang...

I turned on the front porch light and found the same young lady standing on our front porch accompanied by her mother. The nervous teenager stated her name and apologized for making a dumb decision. I told her that had she decided to heed my motions from earlier in the day to pull over, I likely would not have called the police. Her mother quickly cut me off and thanked me for calling them and reporting her daughter's actions without more serious legal consequences. I thanked the girl and her mother for stopping by and they went on their way. Based on the look on the mother's face, I highly doubt she will be driving anything other than her parents to the store for quite some time.

Wrap Up

As we see ever-present news stories about bad parents, over parenting, lawn mower parenting, etc., it's nice to have an experience where no one took things too far. Appropriate consequences were still handed down by responsible parents without drastically affecting someone's future. Ten years from now, I hope that the Cherokee County of the future will treat my soon to be teenagers the same way when they act stupidly. Allowing kids to screw up and learn from their mistakes without it affecting the rest of their lives.

If anyone wants some Pink Whitney, Malibu Rum, or a 12 pack of TRULY, it's available on first come, first serve basis. We may be "fruity" but fruity alcohol is not our beverage of choice.

‍If you want to riminess on dumb things we did as teenagers or anything else, message me, and let's grab coffee or a beer.

Have a good one,

Dan