"Rodney Alert"

We have a couple of apartments that surround our home. It's not the best scenario. It makes for an ever-revolving potpourri of human life for neighbors.

One thing we always seem to have in the neighborhood though, is a rambunctious, mischievious, five-year old boy - a real-life Dennis the Menace.

Early on in our time here I was sitting in my office working on a project when suddenly I heard this "BANG! Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang." It was a loud metallic bang followed by four or five smaller bangs in rapid succession.

It kept happening.

I hadn't a clue. So, of course, I opened the front door to the office and stepped out on the sidewalk.

I looked to the right - hmmmm, nothing. I looked to the left - and there was the neighbor boy waving vigorously at me and smiling from ear to ear.

"Do you want to play with me?" he yelled.

Then he chucked a baseball up onto this metal awning "BANG! Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang."

I shook my head, sinking it into my right hand.

On that day I was officially old. I had to be Mr. Wilson and scold Dennis the Menace.

He saw that I was frowning. I told him that he really shouldn't be doing that. A few more tosses later he packed it up and tore into some other unknown mischief.

That neighbor moved.

But our new Dennis the Menace has arrived.

This one is another five-year-old blonde, and yesterday I learned that his name is "Rodney." Rodney likes to sneak down from his apartment, that he shares with his Mom and Dad, and play on the sidewalks and in the street.

About a week ago I caught him sitting on a brick sidewalk, trying to pull the bricks out. His father ran across the street, picked him up and took him back home a moment later.

Yesterday we were in the middle of a delivery, when the delivery man reported that a small boy was trying to climb into his truck. It was Rodney. We chased him out of the truck, and then I found him moments later trying to pull the bricks out of my front stoop.

"Does your Mom and Dad know you're out here?" I asked him.

"Rodney, get back upstairs," one of the deli workers yelled coming out the front door.

Rodney started to scramble. He stopped a garbage truck and traffic in all directions as he crossed the street.

Not a good situation. We're officially on "Rodney Alert."