Garden Terrorists

I've turned into Mrs. Majiewski. I don't know when it happened. One day, I was a nice, tolerant person, and the next I had my head pressed up against an upstairs window screen yelling, "get out of the garden"!
Mrs. Majiewski lived two doors down from my childhood home. She was a nice enough woman most of the time, but if you made the mistake of stepping one foot on her front lawn or, heaven forbid, accidentally tossing a ball on her grass, she went ballistic. Her front door would fly open, and she'd lean out, screaming (and I do mean screaming), "Get off the grass." Joey Kiehlmeier called her Old Lady Majiewski, and every time he walked down the street, he'd slide one foot of the sidewalk and onto her lawn, just to torment her. He was a good little trouble maker.
About a year and a half ago, a big family moved in next door to me. There are five little kids, and their cousins are frequently there, too. They love sports, and they play a lot of backyard baseball. The yards are small and their arms are powerful, so the ball sometimes flies over the cedar fence into my yard. My yard is a big garden--my pride and joy. I've asked them to let me know if the ball lands in the garden bed. I'm happy to go out to look for it. The kids don't know the difference between a pricey hosta and grass, so they step on everything when they go hunting. I've lost whole plants to their little feet, and that bugs me.
Yesterday morning, on my way to the shower, I glanced out the back window and saw two little kids tromping through the garden. That's when I channeled my inner Mrs. Majiewski. I thrust my face to the screen and told them not to walk in the beds. I didn't scream, but I was firm. As soon as they left, looking pained to leave the lost ball, I had a pang of guilt. I went out and searched for fifteen minutes, but my garden is the black hole for lost balls. So after I got ready for work, I drove up to the store, bought some rubber baseballs, and took them back to the kids. That's where I differ from Mrs. M. She'd snatch any ball that landed on her lawn and take it into her house to teach us a lesson.
The memory that makes me remember to smile at the kids and remember that they really are just kids, not garden terrorists, is something I did in an act of revenge against Old Lady Majiewski. After years of screams and stolen balls, we neighborhood kids had had it with her. So one night, we stole into her backyard vegetable garden from the back side, and pulled baby carrot after baby carrot and ate them, tossing the leafy tops back onto the soil. I'm not proud of the moment, but it is my own cautionary tale. Sometimes I think of the kids next door sneaking over with gallons of herbicide to kill my garden as I sleep. It would probably be wise to simply let them walk on the plants.
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