I said tree HUGGER, not MUGGER...

We moved out to this sleepy little community about 8 years ago to get away from the craziness of Big City life. You know, to start a family where life is a little more straight forward. Where there aren't as many bad influences like you have in the burbs. You know, like gangbangers, White Castles, and community colleges. That kind of crap. True story, I knew we were no longer in ChicagoLand when I saw an ad in one of the local papers advertising "A free shotgun with purchase of an ATV." Let me know when you can get that kind of deal at a Starbucks.

But somewhere along the line, everything changed. It's like we just got here and suddenly the schools were overcrowded, the Earth started warming up, and people were driving imports. It's like we were right back in suburbia. And I gotta tell ya, I'm feeling like some soccer mom just crammed me into back a minivan full of cleat-wearing, iPodded, stinky boys and took the beltline straight to Hell. I blame WalMart.

Well, the other night, it hit home. Literally. One of the things I've noticed about youth around here is that they really want to be all 'awesome' like the City kids. So, they do their best to mimic their antics. You know like cosmic bowling, or going to a private school, and my personal bane... littering. I cannot begin to tell you how many Twinkie wrappers and fastfood bags we've found in our front yard over the years. I don't know what it is about my lawn that says, "Don't worry, clearly these folks work for the department of sanitation" but apparently it whispers it to all the kids in the neighborhood. I found a full, upright cup of salsa once, still wrapped in tinfoil (I guess the burrito had enough flavor on it's own.) I also hit a ten dollar bill with the lawn mower last fall. For future reference, don't try to cash a shredded bill at a bank unless you can recover both serial numbers. Who knew?

Anyway, you're probably wondering why I'm grousing about litterbugs when it's 5 below outside. Well, the other night, I walked out the front door and found this laying on my sidewalk:

And my first thought was, "Why the hell would anyone break off a reflector and throw it at my house?" For whatever reason, my brain usually asks "Why" before "Who" or "How." It also takes things extremely personally. I've spent far more energy than I care to admit mulling over whether an errant Ho-Ho wrapper was a symbolic gesture or just windblown garbage. Anyway, upon further inspection, this reflector was not the only piece of vehicular debris in my front lawn. So, I followed the only logical course of action. I took a deep breath, trudged back into the house, and asked my wife point blank if there was anything she needed to talk to me about.

"Like what?" she responded, blinking twice. She caught onto my tone though and was taking me seriously. I could tell because she stopped knitting to make eye contact.

"Oh, I don't know..." I said with as much restrained judgment as I could muster up, "How's your car these days?"

"Why? WHAT? Did you hit my car again?" At this point, I *think* she actually set down one of her needles. But either way, I knew she didn't have anything to do with the situation out front.

"No, nothing, never mind. There's a bunch of green car parts in the snowbank that apparently are not off your Saturn."

"Really?" She went to the window, but at this point it was too dark to see anything.

The next morning, Chris took pictures from the other side of the sidewalk:What the picture doesn't show is that the gouge taken out of the tree is at least 3 and a half feet off the ground. And keep in mind that our house is in the middle of the block. I'm not saying it hasn't been slick out there, I'm just saying that it's not like some bloke just slid through an intersection, hopped the curb and clipped our tree. Someone was going pretty fast... and if that someone is you, I've got your bumper and I'd like a word with you.

It's a sad day when trees aren't even safe to line the streets anymore. What's this place coming to? Will the hatred ever end? I mean, if it was a Sugar Maple, I'd understand... But, dude. Won't someone think about the conifers?!?!!

All we are saying, is give trees a chance.

PS- Apparently our tree was the only victim and that whoever else was involved is ok. A police report was filled out, but we can't request records until business hours, so stay tuned for the next exciting episode of "Get Off My Lawn"