Piddler on the Roof!!!

I'd written this back in 2001 while living in Raleigh, NC. Still find it funny:

A couple of kids aged around 5, who live in a close by apartment returned from school and decided to utilize the excellent weather outside to full use. Instead of running home to relinquish their water buildup of the day, they quickly ran towards the wall in front of my apartment and were about to embark on the highlight of their day. But being the spoilsport that I am, I intervened and quickly dispatched them to do their duty in the closed confines of their indoor toilets. While talking to them I made sure that I used the correct words to dissuade them from such future endeavors and also tried to be as “American civilized” as I could.

Let me explain the use of the above term. Now if the same situation had occurred in my homeland, and I come from India, then things would have been played out very differently. For starters, if anyone is seen piddling around your house or apartment, the first and immediate thing you might search for might be: a whip, cane, cricket bat, hockey stick, small stone, big stone, anything as long as it causes pain upon impact. Next, you run out of your house whooping insane war cries and a colorful assortment of swear words that would later surprise even you. Of course, the effect that this action has on the said piddler would be to cause sudden contraction of certain muscles in their body hence inducing sudden freeze of the criminal evidence. This would be followed with the most hilarious form of running while trying to zip up the pants.

In case the culprits were small kids like the ones I had encountered, then in most cases they would be caught and most probably be threatened by the catcher, with dire consequences, the most popular one being to threaten circumcision of the poor kids if they ever thought of piddling on your walls again. Now almost all the kids back home know what the ‘c’ word means and instantly imagine the associated image of a shining knife or scissor coming towards them and causing unimaginable pain. Not surprisingly such threats have a strong effect on the kids and they really take it to heart and never ever repeat the horrendous crime again till the day they find out that it was all a farce anyway and go forth again with vengeance on their minds. But till then, everything is fine as you wouldn’t have to worry about mushrooms and such growing on your walls.

Let us consider the repercussions if I were to take the exact same actions as described above against the two juvenile culprits who were intent on fertilizing the walls in front of my apartment. Well it would definitely have had an impact on them no doubt. But the next day I would have had to deal with a possible lawsuit filed by the parents for being a pervert and a barbarian. A pervert for watching kids performing natures call in pristine nature and a barbarian for threatening to circumcise them. I would possibly have had to deal with the cost of the psychiatrist that the parents had to hire for the poor kids to deal with the trauma that my comments had caused them. There would have been a news crew hounding me wherever I went thus making my life miserable. Not to mention most probably being arrested. Pretty soon I would have been handed an eviction notice by my apartment management for being a psycho and find my photo splashed on some sleazy paper or magazine about the pedophile that “lives amongst us”. My employers wouldn’t want to do anything with me and basically no one would be willing to listen to me.

Life would be miserable and all this because I chose to be “Indian civilized” while living in America. Kind of make sense now when I listen to the “When in Rome act as Romans do” thing. Hence I chose to be “American civilized” when dealing with the two kids I mentioned. But hey, I think I may have been too late as I see some mushrooms growing there already.