Last night, about 8:15 pm, I was working in the office and through the wide open windows
I heard some yelling and quite a few f-bombs outside. I looked up and saw a man, about
50 yrs old, running down the street towards our house. He was yelling at a couple
of younger men (late teens, early twenties) who were chasing him and also yelling
profanities. As they passed in front of our house, I lost sight of them behind the
hedge but could hear them arguing profanely. While I was on the phone with the police,
I heard my neighbor across the street yell at them that he had called the cops. At
the same time, a car with a woman pulled up and I heard someone yell “Mom”.

All the while, Max is very mad at me because I would not let him outside, and he was
trying desparately to see what was going on behind the hedge, through the open windows.
Finally, I saw everyone get in the car and drive away. A couple of minutes later,
2 police cruisers came by and I talked to one of the officers. Max was very impressed.
As the cruiser pulled away, the woman who was driving the car came walking down the
street and talked to the police officer. I didn’t get to talk to her, but my neighbor
said that she had come by to explain that the older man was drunk and his sons were
trying to get him back in the house, and to apologize for the ruckus.

Toby was at the store during all this, and Max was bursting at the seams to tell her
the details of the fighting. I heard him say that he had heard a bad word. ‘Oh no’
I thought. He is going to ask why they were yelling f*** at each other so much. I
asked him what word he had heard. He lowered his voice, and with the gravest of faces
he whispered, “I heard ‘Shut Up’.”

Whew! Dodged that bullet for now.