It's like being a first year.
 

I told him. [true story] after i retired, i went into the future and ironically my paths crossed with ty. at 50 [/true story].

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

Friends,

I have a problem.

Our next door neighbor is a nice enough fellow. Early 50s, kids grown and gone, and IIRC divorced about 10 years ago. Interesting enough guy, intelligent, good dinner companion. A bit odd in some ways (for example, he rents out a bedroom to students from time to time, and from the traffic to and from the house it reminds me a bit of a hostel), but whatevah.

A few weeks ago, he invited us (including the Gaplets) over to dinner with another couple and with his new ladyfriend. Ladyfriend has two kids, relatively close in age to the Gaplets. (They are 7 and 5, the Gaplets are 6 and 3.) Dinner was a bit chaotic, as would be the case anytime you have a house with 4 small children in it, but enjoyable enough.

Since then, whenever the ladyfriend comes over to the neighbor's house, she sends the boys over to come play.

Now normally, mind you, this isn't a problem. We have other kids over from time to time, and send ours to go terrorize the homes of the Gaplets' friends as well. But there are several things about this particular arrangement that are getting under my skin:

• * The ladyfriend never calls to either ask permission for or announce the kids' impending arrival. They simply appear at the door. If nothing's going on at the time, that's fine, but if we've got other visitors, or plans, or need to draw pentagrams in the backyard without interruption, then we've got a problem.
  
  * A small point, but there's no reciprocity here. We'll be sitting for her kids whenever she wants to come visit, but there's never been any discussion about our guys going over to their house.
  
  * The kids lack the politeness gene, or training, on of the two. (Ms. Gap and I have taken to calling these two kids, between ourselves, the Street Urchins.) This flaw manifests itself in a number of ways, ranging from arrival (not asking if the Gaplets are free to play, but marching in upon the door's opening) to negotiations ("You have friends over for dinner? When will you be done? Can we come back in 10 minutes? 30 minutes?") to departure (it's hard to get them to leave -- apparently the Rule of 3 applies, where the explanation that the playdate has to end now needs to be repeated. And repeated.)
  
  * The Street Urchins prefer more violent games than the Gaplets are used to.
  
  * We find ourselves doing a little more proxy parenting than we would expect when handling the children of a woman with whom we've spent a single evening over dinner. "No, guys, you can't climb the tree in the front yard." "No, I'm afraid you can't 'borrow' that toy until next time. It's one of the Gaplet's favorite toys."
  
  * How can I best put this? I hate them. It's hard to fully articulate this in a single post, but the things they say, the things they do, IMO have little redeeming value. The older Urchin will, I believe, soon grow up to be torturing small animals. The look I find in his eyes is the look of one who, under the surface, is accustomed to challenging authority figures. The younger Urchin isn't quite as toublesome, but it's just a matter of time.

We haven't taken any steps yet, largely because Ms. Gap and I have been taking all this in and at different moments being amused, perturbed, and appalled. In any event, this state of affairs won't continue. I am a bit concerned, though, about resolving it without souring our relationship with the neighbor, or needlessly creating an enemy in the ladyfriend.

Random solutions range among the following:

* Ignore it, hope for a breakup
* Move to new city
* Four Words: Front door spring gun
* Require the Mom to call ahead to ask
* Declare that the Urchins are dead to us

But I'm sure that more creative solutions are out there, and I know our little group is up to the task.

Gattigap

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

The next time they appear at the door, what's wrong with saying that you're sorry, but everyone is busy, the Gaplets can't come out and play and they should march their shitty little sociopathic JD asses back to their whore of a mother next door because you're not running a daycare center for prostitutes? Follow up with a muffin basket, of course.

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

Not a bad idea. I wasn't sure that the Urchins would be old enough to get the You're Dead to Me reference, but this variant has the advantages of directness and sass.

(The point of trivia that the neigbor in question is a rabbi gives this solution a little extra spice, too.)

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

It seems like it would be kinder not to deal with this by inexplicably (to children) changing the rules midstream. After all, it is not their fault they are being raised by wolves. So tell the neighbor and/or his ladyfriend that you need an ahead-of-time call, and that you aren't providing babysitter services, or, if the kids seem amenable to suggestion from their peers, have your kids tell them that their other friends' parents call ahead.

Why is it so hard to call the neighbor?

ETA, in theory I generally take the "best interests of the children" approach, and on a second reading it seems like you would rather fuck with the kids' heads than figure out how to deal with the adults. It seems like their adults (rabbi and friend) need to get on the "your house, your rules" bandwagon and reinforce that with the kids, and they need to get the "the adults call first" message, and enforce it with their kids. You need to just say to the kids, as to activities at your house, that you don't do XYZ.

And if the rule is, must call before play date, then you can't have play dates that don't involve calling, except under extraordinary circumstances.

And don't forget, it's OK to leave the baby exposed on the porch while you fetch haircare implements.

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

What, seriously? It's not. This, simply, is an opportunity for irreverent dreams of spring guns before having the conversation with that whore about her sociopathic children (just the terms I was grasping for. Thanks,weed!)

Oliver Twist
 

You forgot

* Hand each of the urchins a broom and declare "Today we're playing Disney - and you two get to play Cinderella!!! Hooray!! Now go sweep the floor!!!"

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

Oooooh.

Use the children in demonic rituals. Use your kids too. Good training.

Tell the kids that their mom is a whore and is sending them over to your house so that she can [insert highly descriptive sexual stuff here, but use "wee-wee" and "cock" interchangeably, for maximum fucking-with-heads-ness] with the rabbi guy. Tell them that rabbi guy and mom are going to hell because they haven't accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Tell them children who don't spontaneously develop stigmata and speak in tongues aren't welcome. You are from the south -- have a field day with the religion thing. You dabble in Monkey porn -- have a field day with the sex thing.

I'm shocked -- shocked -- that you can't figure out how to be maximally emotionally abusive.

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

Start teaching the kids about accepting Jesus Christ as their personal loward and savior, and the problem should solve itself in a couple of days.

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

Even easier than trying to teach them anything - send 'em back with rosary beads and ashes on their foreheads. "Mommy, what's Opus Dei?"

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

here's what gets me about liberals: on PB Gattigap is all about taking money from me and giving it to help people in a poor position- "it's not their fault and we need to help everyone rise up!"

here he has a chance to teach these kids manners- can't he work with them to see what's inappropriate and how to better interact according to his perception of what is proper?

the "bad kids?" guess what- it's not their fault and Gattigap as a member of society should try to correct the shortcomings he perceives in their behavior. society is "taking" anything from him- it is just asking that he gives his fair share.

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

Weed,

I for one think it's telling that Hank eschewed the easy swing offered with the Judaism/Christianity pitch, and waited for the high, hard, inside challenge of liberalism on which to base his response.

It's time we took note from Hank's example, that the path to becoming Most Helpful Lawtalkers Poster 2006 requires us to stretch ourselves and write about what's unfamiliar and challenging. We have Hank to thank for this little reminder. Doubly so after I tell the Urchins that with this little Greyhound ticket, they can go visit Uncle Hank in Detroit, who has in his basement loads of toys and that big cache of assault weapons they've been asking about.

Gattigap

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

Kill them. I can't believe I have to tell you this shit.

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

If you would just stop trying to take all his money and give it to murdering junkies to spend on clean needles and rusty knives, which, as we all know, is the central tenent of liberalism, I'm sure everything could be worked out. Besides, Hank's house is already full of the adopted children of young mothers he convinced to forego abortions while chained to the front doors of the Detroit Planned Parenthood clinic. And Katrina orphans. Lots of Katrina orphans.

Dealing with the Street Urchins
 

OK. But afterwards, do you think that lemon water will be enough, or should I use a stronger brine?