Double Pit: Pot Smoking Teens and Me

The BBQ Pit
1

Yesterday afternoon, I was in my front yard digging out a snow fort for my son to play in. My wife was inside helping him into his snowsuit.

Two guys in their late teens walked past my house smoking a joint, stopped briefly, and turned around to walk back towards their place. Basically, they were going for a walk to burn one and heading straight home. Wouldn’t smoke a joint in front of your house? Don’t smoke it in front of mine.

Me: Seriously guys? Right here? On the sidewalk in front of my house?
Them: Yeah. <what are you gonna do about it shrug>

Pit #1a: I have nothing against pot smoking, as long as you do it in private. If you wouldn’t drink a beer walking down the street, it’s not okay to smoke a joint. Do it in your house, or walk the extra five minutes to the woods at the end of the street.
Pit #1b: When someone calls you on it, at least give a half-assed sorry, and/or put the joint out.

At this point, I was a little frustrated with the overt pot smoking, and the response I received when I expressed my displeasure. As a result, a shovelfull of snow may or may not have been directed at them, and may or may not have hit them.

Them: You want a piece of this?
Me: <standing atop an 8 foot snowbank with a shovel in hand> I’d love a piece. Bring it on over here.
Them: Mumble mumble mumble <walks away>

Pit #2: In my efforts to shield my young son from exposure to drug use, I almost exposed him aggressive, threatening, and potentially violent behaviour. Shame on me.

Thankfully he and his Mom came out a few minutes later, and were not witness to my childishness.

But man it felt good to rain frozen justice upon those punks.

2

That’s pretty funny. But yeah, you have to think about more than yourself when you get the urge to dole out instant justice. Sorry. They may even hold it against you and seek vengence later but I doubt it. It’s pot smokers. If they don’t forget they will just be too laid back to respond.

3

I’m in favor of pot, but I’m against rude punks. The real risk is challenging teens in front of your own house … they know where you live and if they’re under eighteen, they are almost immune to substantive punishment for nearly anything short of murder or kidnapping.

I doubt a child will be affected in any way by strangers walking by on the street smoking funny smelling cigarettes, kids think ordinary cigs smell funny. I understand you standing your ground, but I don’t get the initial outrage. If they were in your driveway or walkway, I’d understand. When something like this happens again, You oughta pull out your phone and snap a few pictures.

No offense intended, I just don’t think you saved your child from anything harmful, and watching grownups argue and nearly fight can’t be good, can it?

4

Jesus Christ, whatever happened to live and let live. How tough would you have been if instead of two stoned teenagers it was two big ass bikers smoking?

5

You know why bikers wear leather? Because chiffon wrinkles so easily.

6

This is a classic case of how giving in to the annoyance and responding makes the unpleasant situation last longer than it otherwise would have. If it was a pair of drunks downing vodka outside your house, putting The Fear into them might head off some vandalism or even a drunken assault, but potheads? The worst they’d likely do is talk nonsense and blear at you for a while.

This ties into one of my little rules: If any course of action sounds like it might be part of the first act of a sitcom episode, don’t do it. It’s served me well so far.

7

It was snow not burning charcoal and he could have called the cops and didn’t.

8

A friend of mine living in Boston had his car burned to the ground and his house vandalized by a neighborhood teenager, and then, he got beaten up by the teen’s father when he brought the issues to his attention. I for one try real hard to not alert delinquents to the address of my house where my stuff is, and my family lives. It’s just a matter of survival … don’t escalate confrontations unless it’s a case of self defense or defense of an innocent. No offense intended.
I understand the feelings, I don’t approve of the decision to act on them. Not over a little pot.

9

Your story has them smoking before they got to in front of your place, while they were in front of your place, after they passed your place, and since they didn’t put it out when you called them on it while they were in front of your place again, they were still smoking on their way back to their place.

I’m fairly sure they did smoke part of that joint in front of their place.

If you’re here, and I’m here, doesn’t that make this our time, Mr. Hand?

10

Really don’t get why you care what they were smoking as they walked peaceably down the street. They weren’t bothering any normal person. They were minding their own business. Back in the day, your actions would have essentially said “Please egg my house, key my car, roll my lawn, deliver flaming bags of dog poop to my door, and otherwise fuck with my stuff anytime you get bored for the foreseeable future.”

11

This means you’re against the OP, right?

12

Not at all, as I think you already know. I wouldn’t have done what Chilliwack did … I think he made a mistake. I think he knows that. The kids should have moved on right away, but hey, they’re teenagers. If anyone is prone to being contrary it’s teenagers. I can really see a couple of young guys responding like that, as dickish as it was. Lesson: pick your battles. Also, priorities … don’t make a big deal out of nothing.

13

I don’t respond well to contemptuous remarks either. To interpret their actions as an affront to you personally, and act accordingly, probably elicited their stupid response to try to intimidate an armed man. That being said, why would you want to attack anyone and potentially make them your enemies? Especially since they know where you live.

14

Yep, classic. And extremely frustrating as a parent and homeowner.

It really is not a big deal to be discrete with your pot. Not all that difficult to walk on the other side of the street from the guy with his kid.

But, as the OP realizes, saying something was of no help, and instead started things down an unpleasant road. If it gives you any comfort, be glad you did not wake up the next morning to a broken front window, or to the cops knocking on your door and charging you with assault.

You were right to be angry about the initial situation but, as you apparently understand now, could have responded to that anger better. On the one hand, this is a stupid, little, isolated situation. But I’ve had a couple of such situations in my life that really spurred me to examine how I thought of and interacted with others. So if you want to put a positive spin on this unpleasant moment, see if you can gain some insight from it that will help you the next time someone pisses you off by doing something stupid or clueless.

15

How old is the kid? Because I bet that had you not made a scene the kid probably wouldn’t even have noticed what they were doing or smoking.

16

What’s with the “may or may not”, do you think we will testify against you?
You bullied some possibly stoned teenagers, meh. Do you expect polite rational behaviour from such?
Did the snow figure into it? Were you tired, frustrated at something else?
You can’t protect your kids from the world, just explaining to them is pretty much all you can do.

17

Why would you not, instead of confronting them, challenging them, and making enemies, didn’t you confide in them that a) please not in front of my youngster, b) they are being videotaped where they are currently puffing, FYI, consider going past my videocameras before puffing next time? Thanks kids!

More flies with honey and all! Has the added advantage of informing them you have cameras around your place, discouraging retaliation or more hi jinks!

Confrontation, and escalation, you modelled for your child, drawing attention to what they would otherwise have never noticed, is far worse than him seeing some teens smoking on the street in my opinion. I bet you’re all anti bullying too, huh?

18

Just saw from the OP, that the kid wasn’t even there.

Funny, I can think of 3 situations in which I wish I had acted/said other than I did - all of which followed extremely heavy snowfalls. Certainly not the only 3 such situations in my 52 years, but seems to suggest one time at which I am not at my best…

19

Because there was a chance that at some point in the future, his young son may or may not see someone smoking a joint and therefore have his entire life ruined.

Or something. Throwing a “won’t someone think of the children!” wail in there seems awfully weak to me. I don’t know the OP’s location, but if it is indeed Chilliwack, BC, his young son is probably about five years away from smoking his own pot. You don’t want to expose your kids to drug use, don’t live in BC.

20

I’ve called some teenagers on doing really stupid shit and invariably it goes south no matter how in the right you may be. As mentioned upthread there’s little that can be done to them, you don’t want to be the focus of their destructive attention and you’ll lose sleep keeping an eye out for them in the future trying to deflect more wanton vandalism, etc.

I don’t know what the answer is but unless they’re actually causing real destruction or danger to someone I’d just let them be their stupid selves. They’ll eventually grow out of it… after an agonizingly long, insufferably annoying period.