Let me give you a little bit of background into the following email exchange between me and my neighbor just a few days ago. I should preface this post by saying that I truly do feel blessed to live in the neighborhood that I do. The kids play outside all the time, everyone watches out for each other’s kids, and the overall feel is that of a generation ago, when kids could be kids. Especially (ironically?) when the moms are out. It almost always happens – even for a quick errand – that when certain moms cars are not in their driveways, the street becomes Kids Gone Wild. Or at least the Version 2.0’s from a couple of select houses…(and I thought my 2.0 was a handful!)…

Excerpt from my recent email:

Hi! I just wanted to reach out quickly – yesterday afternoon your Version 2.0 let himself into our house again. I’m not sure if he knocked, but my Version 1.0 and I were in the basement painting something when we heard footsteps above us. I went upstairs and your 2.0 had come in the back door and was wandering around our first floor…

Excerpt from response email: 

Whaaat! Oh my goodness, I am so so sorry!!!! I am horrified!!! I would have been so freaked out!!!

(Well, considering this wasn’t the first time this has happened…) 

Continued response:

But I’m also sorry, because this is the first time I heard of him doing this!?!?

(I figured if I had told you about the first time, when he stealthily ninja-stepped his way up our back stairs to my office – when I was the only one home, the kids and the husband were out, the garage door was down, and there were no cars in the driveway – you really would have been mortified.) 

Continued response:  

Did you email me last time? 

(No, I was hoping that a stern: “You can’t be coming into people’s houses like this!” would have sufficed…)

Excerpt from my email:

We really adore your Version 2.0 and I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but if you could just reiterate that if no one answers his knocks that he can’t just let himself in – I would really appreciate it! Thanks so much!

Excerpt from response:

I will definitely speak to him – thank you for your email!

Before I even had the chance to recognize that she had emailed me back, she called me to follow up (which was probably the best way to hash this out rather than in email anyway). The email conversation was replayed via phone, with the conclusion being that it truly does take a village. I knew she would be mortified that her son was making himself at home…in our home…when no one was there (ha!). And I knew that she would want to know – just as I do – when her kids are out of line. Yet the hesitation in reaching out, given the society that we live in where people barely take responsibility for their own children, let alone a friend’s, neighbor’s, stranger’s (gasp!), made me anxious. I’m glad to know though, that in my own little neck of the woods, we praise kids when they deserve it, we hold kids accountable – regardless of their age, and we help each other out. I want to see everyone that I surround myself with, both figuratively and literally, succeed, and in order to do that, it really does take a village. I’m glad it all worked out…for now anyway.

We’ll see soon enough if we get a stealth visitor again (although would we even know, if no one was around to hear him?). It’s like that old “if-a-tree-falls-in-the-forest” thing…