Glad it wasn't me!

My Brother's house was TP'd Saturday night. He was told to lighten up because it’s "a right of passage."  I left his house thinking, “Crap- if my kids do not have someone TP the house, does that mean my hubby and I are going to have to sneak out in the middle of the night and TP our own house so they don’t feel left out?” Believe me, if this is the case this is something we would do too! Not only that, but the TP'ing of the house is not always as innocent as it seems – I have a funny story about this:


As you know, I dated my hubby in high school. When we were 16/17 yrs old, we went on a double date with two people who were a little more wild/adventurous in their dates than we were. They thought it would be fun to play a prank on someone. (Yes, it was all them planning it, and me and my mate just sat there letting them twist our arms. RIGHT) Our first stop was the local convenient store for rolls of toilet paper.( Do you know they won’t even sell this to teens at night anymore?) Then, we decided that going to the driving range after dark and picking up all of the stray golf balls to put into people’s lockers so they would pour out of them when opened, was a much better idea.
So the guys jumped out on a side street and told us girls to drive around until we saw them again to pick them up. I couldn’t drive stick, so I’m now just a passenger to this grand plan. Of course about 5 minutes after them leaving the car we get pulled over. When asked what we were doing, my friend said “just driving around”, but of course the cops being smarter than us asked who we had just dropped off?  Denials ensued.
At this point we were asked to step out of the car, they searched our purses, and then asked to look into the trunk. In the trunk they found our newly purchased toilet paper rolls – which we bought at our Mom’s request- of course! And a baseball bat. In our defense,  this was not our car and neither of us knew why there would be a baseball bat besides the obvious reason,which didn’t fly with the cops, thanks to some freshly hit mailboxes that WE HAD NO PART IN. Now they separate us girls and make us tell them who we dropped off and I give up their names because I had never been in any kind of trouble before and if you have read the posts about my Dad – I wasn’t planning on sitting in jail til I rotted away. (and to this day I have never lived down the fact that I gave not only their real first names but included their last names too)
We are then handcuffed (NO JOKE) and thrown into the back of the car and are driven around for several hours while the cops are megaphoning the two boys by NAME, around the neighborhoods using their spot light.  
At one point they get another call about a man who has "escaped" (remember we are in a very rural area, so this was probably not a hard thing to do) the drunk/drug tank, and could they pick him up?  Well our car attempted to do just that until my friend and I wizened up about how far these cops should really be going at this point and blocked the door with our feet so they could not add this lovely smelling, barely able to walk fugitive to our party.  We then proceeded to the Sheriffs station. (When you live in a remote area, you do not get taken to the local police department, the Sheriff has to get involved.) We arrive to the station and now I am kissing some major butt, so after giving my statement I tell the officer about my interest in law enforcement ( OH yeah, I knew at an early age how to lay it on thick) and can I get a tour, pretty please? – They comply. Meanwhile, my friend is NOT cooperating as well. She is followed into the bathroom and a woman officer watches her pee.
By 2am, the cops call our parents and again as you know, my parents were off on their boat assuming I'm home at curfew being a good girl, while my oldest brother, thankfully sober says he is on his way to get me.  These cops never did realize he was my brother and not my Dad and I am sure at this point they are a little worried they may have stretched their authority with us, so they send us off with a "You have a nice young lady speech" (if you are picturing Barney Fife or Dukes of Hazzard you are not far off)  As I leave the station, our boyfriends are in the back of another car, covered in mud and giving me the evil eye. (Something about running through the woods, one talking the other out of stealing a horse as a get-a-way and finally too tired to run any more so they surrendered)
Of course we all made up, but the next day, my then-boyfriend decided to come clean to my parents just in case we got a letter in the mail (The officers said there would be a small chance we would have to appear in juvenile court) We did this as my Dad was taking us on a ride on the boat in the middle of Lake Erie (this is when I knew my future hubby had NO FEAR) We played it off as a funny, ha, ha -"right of passage" joke. (Never told my Dad what the cops really did to my friend and I for fear it would land my Dad in prison forever, had he known) Several months went by and sure enough that letter came in the mail, and my Mom and I snuck to the courthouse where I got nothing by apologies- after I mentioned the handcuffing of a juvenile and our back of the car joyride for scare tactics adventure. (See, I did do my homework- with the thought of LAWYER not Law Enforcement on my mind)
So, when the kids say, it's nothing - just some innocent TP'ing- you might want to check out their story after all.
PS- The cops did want to know just what the guys were doing with the 50+ golf balls shoved in their pants....