So lately, my most recent project has been by garage, I'm tearing down all the drywall and putting up plywood. Here I am, my garage is cleaned out, everything is in the yard, my neighbor is pressure washing his house, he's in the back yard now. On the other side, my neighbor has the Cox cable guy there installing his cable. I'm in my garage tearing down the drywall. Next thing I know my neighbors wife walks into my garage and tells me she saw some kids running off with a bike out of my yard.
I survey the scene and see my $400 freestyle BMX bike is missing. She gives me a description of the boys, I run in and tell my wife, (who was taking a nap), to watch the stuff in the yard while I go and look for them. Luckily for me the front tire of the bike has a leak and is flat, I havent felt like fixing it, just air it up when I'm gonna ride. There is 2 convenience stores with a half mile of my house so I figure thats the best place to look. I hit the first one and nothing, I loop around the neighborhood and hit the second one, low and behold theres five of these little ****ers just getting to the air compressor, one pushing my bike........
Heres where I want to know what everybody else would do. Me, I speed up to them, slam on the brakes right on front of them and get out yelling, the oldest is probably 8 and the one with my bike looks about 6, (so wrecking **** is out of the question unless I want to spend some time in jail). I give them a verbal lashing, grab the bike, then they run off.
When I get home, (my wife called the cops). The cop is there. I tell him what happened, where I saw them and what direction they were headed in. He returns a few minutes later saying the boy was crying and was on his way to apologize. So he gets there and go's into his apology, the only thing I had to say to him was that he was lucky he was 6. My wife gave him a lecture but I wasn't interested in hearing it.
What would you have done? What would the best thing to teach him a lesson have been? I couldn't really deal with him, I was at the point where it was either get really pissed off and beat him or walk away, and I walked away. Not a good way to handle it but it is what it is. Opinions?
I survey the scene and see my $400 freestyle BMX bike is missing. She gives me a description of the boys, I run in and tell my wife, (who was taking a nap), to watch the stuff in the yard while I go and look for them. Luckily for me the front tire of the bike has a leak and is flat, I havent felt like fixing it, just air it up when I'm gonna ride. There is 2 convenience stores with a half mile of my house so I figure thats the best place to look. I hit the first one and nothing, I loop around the neighborhood and hit the second one, low and behold theres five of these little ****ers just getting to the air compressor, one pushing my bike........
Heres where I want to know what everybody else would do. Me, I speed up to them, slam on the brakes right on front of them and get out yelling, the oldest is probably 8 and the one with my bike looks about 6, (so wrecking **** is out of the question unless I want to spend some time in jail). I give them a verbal lashing, grab the bike, then they run off.
When I get home, (my wife called the cops). The cop is there. I tell him what happened, where I saw them and what direction they were headed in. He returns a few minutes later saying the boy was crying and was on his way to apologize. So he gets there and go's into his apology, the only thing I had to say to him was that he was lucky he was 6. My wife gave him a lecture but I wasn't interested in hearing it.
What would you have done? What would the best thing to teach him a lesson have been? I couldn't really deal with him, I was at the point where it was either get really pissed off and beat him or walk away, and I walked away. Not a good way to handle it but it is what it is. Opinions?