I heard a story this week about a 16-year old kid who was recently given the keys to someone’s house so he could check on it while that person was out of town. As you would expect, the teen did his peers proud and had a few of them over to admire his new digs.
That evening, as they were doing their admiring rather vocally, a concerned neighbor heard them, and knowing the true owner of the home was out of town, decided to make a call to the local police. Busted. That reminded me of the story my brother-in-law tells about the time he once left town without his teenagers, who stayed behind to care for his castle. The middle boy, in a state of pre-party exuberance, began telling a few select friends about his parent’s upcoming departure. He swore them to secrecy, which they gladly agreed to.
Two days later, on the day his parents were scheduled to leave town, a friend of the boy’s older sister handed her a flyer at school announcing a party that night. She recognized the address. I’m told that it became so wild that the Sherwood Police Department was at the party helping park cars. My brother-in-law had to have all of his carpet replaced. His son, now in his mid-thirties, is still grounded. Ah to be young again.
As good as these stories are none of them hold a candle to an experience we had about seven years ago when we lived in Fayetteville on a cul-de-sac called Arthur’s Court. It was a great house on a large lot with a five-acre pond behind it. It was Spring Break and I had planned a weeklong trip to Disney World. While away, I asked a (former) close friend of mine named Fred if he would like to do some house sitting. He agreed. This was going to work out great I thought, as Fred was a bachelor a few years older than me whose best partying days were surely behind him.
So as our plane flew over the cold mountains of northwest Arkansas on its way to the Sunshine State, I relaxed, knowing I had left my beautiful home and my black cat named Fritz in good hands. Now before I go any further there is something you should probably know about Fred. Things have a way of happening to him. They just do. Even when it’s not his fault. So I guess that as our Space Mountain bound jet crested above the clouds and I looked over at my lovely wife and wonderful children, a little voice from somewhere far away inside my head could faintly be heard, saying – “Go back.”
Fred had at the time a lovely young woman of around 21 or 22 who worked for him. She still lived at home with her very over-protective parents. Her father is a minister. Never having much opportunity to spread her wings, the girl’s hopes soared when she heard that Fred would be house sitting for me. Fred claims that she was relentless in her pleas to use the house for just one night. She said that she and her cousin would be the only ones there. They would watch a movie and turn in early. She just had to get away from her parents, if only for a night.
And so, old softhearted Fred, who thought that house sitting meant giving up the keys to the first pretty face that comes along, did just that. The next day when he showed up at work, there was the girl. He asked her if everything had gone all right and she said yes. Then he asked her for the keys and she again begged for just one more night. This time, Fred claimed, he was a rock. No, no, a thousand times no he told her. But she must have asked him a thousand and one because at last he gave in. It would be a decision filled with regret. To be continued.