Awhile ago I posted about two boys thinking about stealing food out my car while I was unloading groceries. See link to that post Anyways this is a follow-up to that post. One of the two boys I keep seeing passing by my home most likely on his way to the newly opened park nearby. Summer in my parts is brutal so blistering hot and I need to get the lawn mowed or face a potential fine from the building code enforcer a real picky lady. As I was setting up my mower one day he passed on his bicycle circled around and came back. "You need help mowing your lawn" he asked. I'm a well fit 60 plus man who can easily mow my lawn in about 30 minutes with ease. However the kid asked so I said what's the going rate. He didn't have a price in mind but surely this kid wasn't going to mowing my lawn for free I thought. After all who am I to him. So I offered him $20 bucks to do the job but it needs to be done right. His eyes lit up as his smile got wide as he agreed that was a fair price and would do it every week as well. Since we were in conversation I got my chance to ask him a few questions like the whereabouts of his home and his age as well. The boy is slighty older than I thought but it's really been a long time I actually talked to a 12 year old. Now I'm not kidding you if you think I wasn't a wee bit nervous talking to a preteen about a possible business possibility so I decided to defuse this situation slightly by asking him to get his parents permission first. He shot back with the answer I expected "my parents won't mind." Still I said I need to speak with at least one of them or the deal is off. I am after all a convicted child sex offender yeah it was 30 plus years ago and I'm not required to be on a sex offender registry but all one would need to do is pull up a background check and that conviction is going to show up. He peddled away only to return with a man who I assumed was his father and it was. We chatted for awhile and then the conversation turned to the business proposal at hand and he decided that $20 per week was much too much for the job he didn't want his son to be taking advantage of a senior citizen. He reduced the offer to $10 and the boys face turned sour. So I shot back with $15 each week and an ice cream sandwich with a soda after each mow. Now we all agreed and that first mow was awkward to say the least since his father insisted upon supervising his son the first time around mowing my yard to make sure he did the job right. So now I have a 12 year old mowing my lawn weekly for the summer and I've got to keep this relationship very business like. Fingers crossed I'm strong enough for that challenge but gee my heart just goes racing when he takes off his shirt exposing his boyish physique for me to drool over. Such torture for a boylover to have to endure I yell you. ![]() |