So, this is how I know that I am officially very, very old.

About 7 or 8 houses down from ours, around a bend in the road, is the last empty lot on our house. In this lot, the many construction workers who work on our street keep a porta-potty.

Every weekend for the past three or four months, that porta-potty has been tipped over by hooligans. Hooligans, running amok on our street! Every Sunday morning, when I see the porta-potty tipped over, it makes me very, very angry. I hate it that these kids pay no mind at all to the huge mess they are making. That they don’t care that someone has to clean up a smelly, icky mess every Monday morning. That the people who live next door to the empty lot have to deal with a horrid smell every weekend when they’d like to be outside barbequing or making snowmen.

And I really, really don’t see the appeal in the whole event. Like, I know we live in crap suburbia, but really, is this the best you can do for entertainment on a Saturday night? EVERY Saturday night? Doesn’t it get old? Doesn’t it get boring? Can’t you find a friend’s basement to play videogames in, or maybe go to the mall for some fries and to hog space in the elevator so old people and the handicapped can’t ride it? Can’t you take in the occasional movie, or watch a hockey game with your folks? No? Instead you would really, really, rather be outside, tipping over the same porta-potty you’ve tipped over for the past 12 weeks in a row?

MyFriendJen actually lives directly across the street from this lot, and we’ve had this conversation a few times before, complete with fist-shaking and use of the word, “whippersnappers.” She dreams of setting up some surveillance cameras and catching the culprits on film. Then we’d nail their asses to the wall! We’re like two little grannies who are policing the neighbourhood, while hip young people laugh behind our backs and make plans to spray paint our mailboxes with obscene words. Worse, I can easily see myself turning into that old guy who lives one street over, who is often standing on the side of the road angrily waving down cars, giving the drivers lectures about how they are going too fast in a residential neighbourhood. Maybe he and I should get together for coffee and ranting some afternoon.

Anyway, yesterday they came and dismantled the porta-potty from the empty lot, because it has been sold and they are going to start construction there soon. So I guess I will have to find some other way to vent my old lady anger. I tell ya, when I was young, kids were respectful! Kids knew their place! Kids were seen and not heard! Jesus.