As I awoke on Easter morning, I said a little prayer.

"Please, Jesus, if I should ever have children, let them not turn out like the Satanic little fuckers visiting their grandparents next door. Amen."

And the thing is, I'm actually being serious, here. When I look out the window and see older one -- the 8-year-old boy screaming like an rabid animal, kicking the deck until the railing breaks loose and using it to "shoot" his little sister ten times before knocking her down and actually biting her on the face, then tearing off her boots and socks and shrieking "YOU'RE DEAD! I KILLED YOU THREE TIMES YOU LITTLE FAGGOT!!" -- I boil with disgust. It's the same thing every time he visits. If he can't punch it, kill it, or gouge its eyes out, he breaks it and turns it into a weapon, which he uses while screaming himself hoarse. They'll visit for four or five hours at a time, and the whole time, he screams obscenities (or, more often, just gutteral noises) and tears up the yard.

That said, at least the kids are playing outside.

I can see this kid's life and his future perfectly every time I peer out the window at him. I imagine he kills a lot of squirrels, and the occasional stray cat. He's a D-student who spends a lot of time in the office, probably for bullying weaker kids, or more likely for having "emotional outbursts." After a short life marked by unemployment, petty larceny, and date rapes, he'll probably kick off around age 26 when he either drunkenly plows his snowmobile directly into a white pine, or else burns to death in a meth-lab explosion somewhere south of the Oliver bridge.

I can't really decide which is more likely.

Every now and then, the girl will scream until their mom will come out, cigarette in one hand and cell phone in the other. The girl will whine to her mom about what the boy is doing, and the mom will reply, "STOP BEING A TATTLETALE, CAROLINA!!!!" Then she'll slam the door, and, if it's dark outside, turn off the yard lights so the kids will have to "play" in the dark.

So I guess it isn't too hard to guess how the little shits got the way they are. Still, Jesus, please. I don't ever want to have to live with people like this.