a scream and a holla

About three months ago, we moved away from suburbia to what I jokingly call "the holla." We really are not out in the country, and are in fact mere yards from a two-lane highway. There are only three houses on our little lane, ours on the end by the road and two others, all of which are separated by the equivalent of a football field (or so). E made friends pretty quickly with the neighbor kids, but especially with the boy next door who is her age. It is normally rather peaceful and quiet. I like quiet.



HOWEVER...



A peaceful afternoon with the big kids playing outside while the little ones napped was interrupted by screaming. Not your ordinary screaming, but screeching the likes of which I have only heard in horror movies. These shrieks could be heard inside the house, drowning out The Food Network and an awakening baby, and I'm pretty sure I saw Paula Deen wince at the shrillness and sheer volume of the racket coming from my very own backyard.



Well.



Being completely annoyed responsible and concerned, I momentarily ignored the sounds of my littlest waking from his nap and the recipe for the deep-fried something-or-other being whipped up on the tube so that I could go out and face what surely must be a severed limb or something equally gruesome. I wondered if I should have my phone in hand, with emergency number on speed-dial, for the crisis that most certainly awaits me on the other side of the grove of trees, from which the hubbub originates.



I step outside, shrieking now somewhat subdued, almost as if children up to something may have heard the back door close. Then it starts up again, and I see my eldest coming toward me through the maze of jungle-like growth that is my backyard. I keep walking toward the yelling, his steps now nearly matching mine, and bark in his direction, "WHAT?!"



"M (neighbor kid who lives in the middle house) is up in the tree, and he won't listen to me when I tell him how to get down, and he's just screaming and..."



By now we have reached the "scene of the accident." And I'm here to tell you, with that much clamor, there SHOULD HAVE BEEN an accident. There were no severed limbs, just a kid sitting on one refusing to come down. Barely six feet up, mind you. And my daughter was standing on a limb ABOVE him, waiting patiently to get down.



Now, look, I am basically a nice person. At least two or three days out of the week. Really, I am. But this whole scene had just been played out a few weeks ago in another tree, in another yard.



As I relived my own flashback of this EXACT SCENE, I got a little angry. I'm not sure why. Maybe this just is not my day to be nice. Or maybe it was an unlucky day to be stuck in my tree. Hard to say.



You see, the last time Tarzan tried to climb a tree, he got "stuck" about six feet off the ground with his bent knee wedged in the crook of the tree which commenced the screaming and screeching and dogs howling and sent my daughter running down the lane in tears, terrified that M was so stuck he might have to just live up in that tree and WAH and "Daddy, you've got to help M, Daddy, pleeeaaassseee!" So Jay, being the nice one and all, jogged down to the neighbor's house, to find the grandmother on a step ladder with her hand under his rump while he screamed and yelled things like...

"Oh my God! AAAHHH! I'm gonna die! OOOHHH! Call the fire department! WAAHHH! Just cut down the limb! AAACCKKK! You're killin' me! OOOHHHOOOOHHHOOOOHHHOOO I'm dying!"


So my husband, who is nice, calmly tells him to push up with his arms, and VOILA! With the weight off his leg, he easily gets "unstuck" and comes down.



After my flashback, which took probably 5 seconds to replay in my head, during which I'm pretty sure my ears began to bleed, I just looked at him in disbelief.



Then I lost my mind for a minute. And I yelled. At him. And everyone nearby. And probably the dog.



Could I have helped him down?



Uh-huh.



Should I have helped him down?



Probably.



Did I help him down?



Nope.



While this is not one of my prouder moments, I could lie to you and tell you that I consciously thought that this would be a wonderful "teaching moment." You know, the kind that good parents have when they let their offspring learn the "natural consequences" of their mistakes...blah blah blah.



Yeah. I wish I could tell you that's what I did.



Nope. Not me. Given his history of histrionics and his propensity for pandemonium, and since he was in MY YARD with MY KIDS and stuck in MY TREE, and I had to wade through poison ivy to get to him, SO I COULD YELL, he was pretty much on his own.



After a little more yelling, his and mine, he finally made it down and was told not to climb any more trees if all he was going to do was scream when he got up there.



Because I am nice.



Then I told ALL OF THEM to kindly find something else to do and STAY OUT OF THE TREE, because all the screaming had "worked mah nerves" and now I had to go take care of the other screaming now coming from the little one who just wants up from his nap, thankyouverymuch, and ohmylordybe, and blah blah yada blah blah, you made me miss Paula Deen.



I did not move to the holla for all this drama, y'all.