Evidence of COLS (Crotchety Old Lady Syndrome)

Yes, that is right. All signs point towards Crotchety Old Lady Syndrome. I have finally succumbed to this mysterious condition. I have two anecdotes to serve as evidence.

I first began to see the Crotchety Syndrome emerge several weeks ago. If memory serves, I was sitting on the couch when Nick came in from the backyard. He states, "the little kids from the neighborhood are stealing rocks from our backyard." "Huh?," I say. "The little girls," he says, " are reaching under our fence and taking our rocks right now." I wondered to myself if this was a big deal and it didn't take long before I decided that yes, in fact, it was a big deal. My reasoning was as follows: (1) The parents in this neighborhood do a piss poor job of watching their children; (2) The kids literally have to trample over the plants in our front yard to get to the fence that they are reaching under; (3) We paid for those rocks; and (4) We paid for those rocks to serve as a barrier between the yard and the fence so that Doug cannot dig his way out of the backyard. Doug likes to dig and would love to escape into the land of Small Children that Play in the Street Unsupervised. Please accept Exhibit A and Exhibit B to support my claim.

Exhibit A (yes, that is mud on his nose)

Exhibit B

I walked into my backyard and over to the side of the fence in question. I started straightening the rocks that were still in the backyard while one of the little girls stared at me through the fence. I nicely (I think) asked, "do you have any rocks?" She said yes and proceeded to hand back all of the stolen rocks through the bottom of the fence. (I must note that Nick was just worried that they might take the rocks and throw them. I had more selfish, superficial reasons which leads me to believe that, in conjunction with my actions, I am a Crotchety Old Lady).

My second example involves a car parked in front of our house. I like to refer to it as an abandoned car. Someone parked it in front of our house 2 weeks ago and it has not budged since. I told myself after the first week that I would give it two full weeks. The two week mark hit today and I had to call the HOA. They're sending someone to put a tow tag on it and if it is not picked up the car will be towed. Is that mean? I can't decide. On one hand what does it really matter to me? On the other hand, the street in front of our house should not serve as a storage facility. If you aren't going to use it, park it in your garage, in front of your own house, or in your driveway. Right? Or am I really just a Crotchety Old Lady?