One of the selling points of the home we bought was it’s location at the very end of a dead-end street. It feels safe. We also like that there’s a couple of families with kids on it as well. It feels homey. When we learned that the guy directly across the street is a 50 year old single man, it raised a bit of curiosity in my wife’s mind as to why. It’s not typical but it’s also not unusual that somebody in their 50’s might be single. Hell, had it not been for my meeting her, I might have become that man at 50 as well. But as a mother, and somebody’s who’s counseling education has exposed her to child abuse, her radar goes off at the slightest of indications and possible warning signs. And in this case it’s just been something she’d made a mental note of and shelved away without any further concern, but just an added consciousness.
Two weeks ago he put out his recycling bins, as did we. And his bin was filled with shredded paper. When they picked it up and dumped it, hundreds of pieces were tossed into the air and scattered by the winds across the street and onto the front section of the sidewalk by our house. I didn’t opt to make any efforts to pick them up as they’re all tiny cross-cut segments no bigger then my daughter’s pinky, so I’ve just figured they’d gradually disappear into the wind, rain and lawnmower.
Sunday, while a friend was visiting and helping with some sprinkler issues, my wife bent down, picked up one of the dozens of random pieces still lying about the grass, and the alert status was immediately escalated to the next level.
The tiny section of paper contained a short block of text ending in a 5 letter word, the first letters being “peni” and last being the cross cut top half of an “s“.
Now, I’m not about to jump to any rash conclusions. That’d be completely unreasonable and I despise assumptions. I believe strongly in the seldom used concept of innocent until proven guilty. For all we know, this guy’s shredded materials could be something he was discarding for a friend, it could be medical reports about erectile disfunction, it could be any number of possible things.
I did continue to examine some of the tiny clipped bits and pieces. The paper appears new and not aged, and recently printed. Based on my findings of words including “her“, “hard“, “warm“, and some cut of clips of words including “vibr” and “ock“…. well, it’s probability of being erotica is high. Fortunately, there were no references to anything like “child” or “bound” or “donkey” so I don’t believe it might have been anything extreme or cause for serious concern. And it’s not like he’s breaking any laws by having printed adult stories in him possession (although my friend joked about them being printed asking “doesn’t he have a laptop?”).
I am certain he’s aware of the fact that they spilled out when being picked up. I wonder if he has any concerns or worries about them being “discovered”. I’ve not seen him since, but then he’s not somebody we see frequently as it is. I don’t have any concerns about him being a threat to our kids in any way, and I don’t hold it against him that, for whatever purpose, he had some ‘dirty stories’ in his possesion. Big deal.
I do intend to diplomatically make him aware, though, that we did find some words on those documents that we don’t particular want our children exposed to. I want him to know we know. Not to embarrass or humiliate him, but because I want him to exercise caution and to be aware that the parents of the children across the street are serious about protecting their kids. Fortunately, they’re too young to read, but there’s other kids on the block that are older.
