One day when I came home from work, I found a lawn mower on the porch.  When I asked Bobby where it had come from . He claimed it belonged to a friend of his that lived a couple blocks away.  They were supposedly going to cut lawns for money. I believed this about as far as I could pick up an elephant and throw it down the road.  I figured sooner or later, somebody would let me in on what was going on.  Well it didn't take long.

The next day a neighbor from across the street from Bobby's friends house, was driving down the road and spotted his lawn mower that had been stolen out of his yard.  He knocked on the door and proceeded to tell me that the mower belong to him.  I had Bobby come to the door and asked him in front of the man if this was true.  Bobby said yes and just stood there.  The man was upset to no end.  But when I asked if he would press charges of theft against Bobby.  The man said no. He didn't have time to deal with it.  Said he would send me a bill if there was anything wrong with the mower.  Loaded it in the back of his truck and left.

This one time I got lucky that there wasn't anything wrong with the mower. But the next day the parent of Bobby's friend stopped by my office.  And informed me that his son and mine had ruined his lawn mower.  They did this with pouring paint in the gas tank and removing any parts that they could.  I thought  GREAT... just what I needed.  I got what few details that he had managed to get out of his son.  And told him that I would talk with Bobby and I would come by and see him and between the two of us parents we could decide how this should be handled.

When I got home that night, I asked Bobby what the deal was with the friend and his dad's lawn mower.  Bobby said it was the other kid that did all that... and the other kid claimed that Bobby had done all the damage.  Bobby proceeded to have a major tantrum (for lack of a better word).   After having to physically having to restrain him to keep him from tearing up my mother's home.  I was too tired to deal with anything else.

The next day I went to see the other boy's father.  We talked about how both boys were responsible for the damage. For his son was no angel either.. He didn't want to press charges for destruction of property even though I pleaded with him to do so.  He had enough trouble with his own son.  Didn't have time to deal with mine.  We agreed to spilt the cost of repairing the lawn mower.  And that the boys were no longer allowed to spend time together.  Not that this did us any good, we both worked full time and the boys were out of school for the summer.

There were other things that would show up around the  house, that Bobby would have no means or explanation for.  But with the lack of anybody complaining there was nothing that I could do.  There had been a lot of small things, like magazines, candy that more than likely had come from one of the two neighborhood stores.  I had gone to both with Bobby and asked if it was possible for them to restrict him from the store.  Neither place would do that.  And both even said that they would more than likely not press charges if he was caught shoplifting.

Well this gave him permission to steal as much as he liked, cause he knew that they wouldn't do anything to him.  It didn't matter how many times I took him up there and made him return items that I had found. Never did any good.