Spring is in the Air

So, Mr. Klan's son was playing ball in the street in front of the Leeds home, when the ball got away from him and landed smack into the front window of Mrs. Spring's home.

Might you remember, this is the second window Mr. Klan has broken. (The story about the first can be found here).

Mrs. Spring does what she always does when she has a crisis with her rental home. She bypasses me--the decision maker--and goes straight to Carolsue--the messenger. When Carolsue called me Saturday night I was on the phone with the Powers That Be about that thing I can't write about that is eroding my stomach lining on a logarithmic scale. So, I didn't get Carolsue's message until long after the damage was done.

In the meantime, Carolsue went on point and worked with Mrs. Spring to find a few reasonable and expedient solutions. The first one that came to Carolsue's mind was to have Mr. and Mrs. Klan pay for the damage. They said absolutely not.

Now, I know that if Buckaroo is playing baseball in the street and he accidentally breaks a neighbor's window, I am ultimately responsible for it. But the Klans didn't see it that way. Of course, the Klans aren't exactly people with common manners and tend to have marginal parenting skills, so I wasn't surprised.

Finally, Mr. Spring opted to fix the window himself. He will collect the necessary parts and send me a receipt. It probably would be faster than finding anyone there to handle the work over there, because we all know how fast things happen in the South. Even Carolsue said she could do it if she could find someone to cut the glass for her. So, with all due respect to Carolsue, it can't be that difficult.

There is a funny little catch to this entire incident. It turns out, Mrs. Spring and Mrs. Klan went to high school together in some obscure small Alabama town. Mrs. Spring apparently didn't run the wild circles as Mrs. Klan, but they know each other's families.

So, under normal circumstances, I might never see a penny for the broken window. However in the South, there are some unwritten rules. One of them is not to embarrass your family--even if your family runs with the wild circles in an obscure small Alabama town. And a phone call from Mrs. Spring to her mother might get back to Granny Klan, which ultimately would get back to Mrs. Klan.

In the South, there are few less dreaded things than getting a phone call from your mamma because she apparently didn't raise you right--even if you are in your mid-50s. Because it will never be a private conversation between Granny Klan and Mrs. Spring's mother. As Miranda Lambert once wisely crooned, "Everyone dies famous in a small town."

Some time over the course of Saturday evening, it occurred to Mrs. Klan what she was in for if she skirted this responsibility. I am told that is why she had the decency to come across the street knock on Mrs. Spring's door, apologize for Klan Jr. and offer to pay for the window.