Friday, Sept. 30, 2005

6:00 p.m.

i am really upset right now. a little background before i tell you why:

my husband, P, works at the local university where one of his responsibilities is overseeing the fraternities and sororities. over the past year, he has had to discipline a few fraternities for hazing, kick one off campus for hazing and then some, and attempted to kick another one off campus for selling drugs out of their house. needless to say, he is not the most popular guy with some of the fraternity guys. fair enough. we've always known that.

but today, we discovered that some of these fraternity guys (actually over 60 of them) started a "we hate P" group on a certain website. and one of the members posted something like this "this is where P lives, this is how you get there. i'm sure he'd love to see all of you." now, it's not the fact that he published our address. anyone could open up the phonebook, type our address into mapquest, and find out how to get to our house. it's the "i'm sure he'd love to see all of you" part.

the police, dean of students, and another associate dean of students have called this kid and told him that if anything happens to our house (or heaven forbid, us!) that he will be in trouble. they've also called the sheriff's department and told them to keep an eye on our house this weekend. they've also called the national organization for each of the fraternities who have members in the "we hate P group" to tell them what happened.

still, P and i were supposed to go out tonight, but i cancelled the babysitter because there's no way i can leave my kids at home when there's a possibility some crackpot may come by with the intention of doing us harm.

i also e-mailed the little bastard who published our address. here's the e-mail:

my name is K. i am P's wife. i am very upset about your post on the "we hate P" facebook group. i'm not upset that you hate my husband. he's an adult, and can handle it. and it's not that you posted our address, anyone could look it up in the phonebook, type it in to mapquest, and find their way here. i'm upset that you implied that some action should be taken at our private residence.

we have two small children, and while you may think it's "just a joke" or "no big deal," can you vouch for the other members of the group? are you sure that none of them would act on your post? how would you feel if someone came to our house and vandalized it (which would scare our kids), or went further and hurt our kids?

i know how i feel. P and i were supposed to go out tonight, and i cancelled the babysitter because i'm now afraid to leave them alone. that's how i feel.

don't read this e-mail as a fraternity member, who is pissed at the associate dean of students. read it as a human being, a son, a friend, and probably a future father. maybe you think i'm being overly dramatic, but these are my KIDS we're talking about.

you crossed the line, luke.


sincerely,

K

i also considered calling this kid's mom. i got as far as looking up his hometown and dialing directory assistance. but then i thought "if the kid is a jerk, there is a good chance his parents are jerks, too." so i didn't do it.

we've told all the neighbors to keep a lookout for crapheads near our house.

i'm so upset about this. i can't stop thinking about it. and KidTwo just asked me why my eyes are puffy and red (yes, i've shed a few tears, too.) i feel a little better now, but i know i'll have a hard time sleeping tonight. i'll be on "mom alert" for any noises.

what a crappy start to the weekend!