Last Saturday night my son and I came home around 10:30. As we got close to the house I saw cars parked all along the street. Lots and lots of cars. More than I have ever seen my in hood. I figured someone was having a party. Turns out the someone was the kid in the duplex we share a wall with. It was kinda loud, but not tooo loud in our bedroom (my son's walls were shaking pretty good though). And the party was just winding up--kids were coming in, not leaving and some smart high schoolers were taking a cab to avoid the drunk driving issue (or they weren't old enough to drive).
After a quick chat with the wife, I decided to call in the law. I didn't really want to bang on the door and ask them to keep it down and please not damage my property. Shoot, in this day and age I didn't want to risk getting shot for going up to someone's door (ok I wasn't really worried about that). Then things got all 21st century.
Prior to making the call I asked my son what he thought--he went on his phone and was able to quickly figure out who might be there (for AHS who read this blog he didn't reveal any names), and he indicated that many of the party goers were serious partiers. Ok, so it's not the board game club (yes the school has a board game club) having a parent supervised gathering (son laughing hard in background).
About 2 minutes after I called in the heat the kids started fleeing the scene. Way before the police arrived. I asked my son what he thought happened and he suggested kids coming to the party saw the police heading their way and texted a warning.
Within 5-10 minutes they were all gone (quietly I might add which was a pleasant surprise).
The next day the kids mom is banging on our door. She tears my wife a new one about calling the police on the party. Why didn't we call her first? Why did we call the cops at all. hummmmmm.
Why didn't we call her first---well if she is there and overseeing a party where kids are drinking and doing drugs, she doesn't seem like a great point of contact to correct the situation. If she isn't there (which she wasn't) I am not sure what she would have done.
Why call the cops---well as it turns out, some of the states I have lived in have this thing called social host laws which means that the parents (and other adults) can be held responsible for underage drinking that occurs on their property. Also if you know that underage drinking is going on and do nothing there is a chance that you can be held liable in these states. It turns out that Colorado is not a state with aggressive social host laws, but I really didn't want to do that research at 11 pm. I also didn't want to risk damage in their property flowing into my property.
So yea I called the fuzz. When I was 18 I was the one having the party (mom traveled a lot for work). Now I am the grumpy old guy calling the cops.
PS driving in St. Louis a little buzzed was never ok, but shoot we weren't driving on winding mountain roads in the snow. 5 Aspen High school kids were in this car---they are all ok ----holy shit safety technology has improved---back in the 80s I bet 3 out of 5 are dead. I kinda wished they had parked the wreck in front of the high school as a visceral reminder. Don't drive drunk. And it seems in this case they weren't they were just being stupid--95 mph on Maroon creek road....stupid.
PPS my dog snuck into their party and did some very messy lines---bad dog
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