I have lived in huge cities, I have lived in medium sized cities, I have lived in small towns. I now live in a ridiculously small town. One of the joys of small town life is the ability to walk just about anywhere. Another one is the ability for me to take the family on a nightly walk to the local park/playground. This is often the highlight of our evening and tonight was no different. We went out to my daughter’s “favorite park” (the only one in town) and we played, chased and hung out.

Tonight I saw something new. It struck me very funny, but I am not sure it really is all that funny. I personally was having trouble not laughing out loud at the gathering of 16-17 year-olds in the playground parking lot. I have never seen a bunch of rural white boys that thought they were an urban gang, playing rap music on boom boxes and flashing gang signs, wearing baggy basketball shorts with boxers hanging out. The first sign of hilarity was the cars they arrived in, they were clearly a fleet of “dad’s cars”. Only one seemed like it could actually belong to one of the kids, a 1985-ish Ford Escort. The rest were 1995-ish Chrysler and GM sensible, mid-sized sedans in good condition and certainly not a 16-year-old’s car. Most of them would normally be “embarrassing to be seen in” for this age group. I got a chuckle at their antics and that would have been all except for what happened next.

There was a roar of an engine, a screech of tires, and into the parking lot zooms a late model Chrysler LHS, the car that replaced the hopelessly uncool-when-new “New Yorker”, a giant boat of a vehicle. The assembled gang got all excited shouting stuff like “there’s my boyeeee” and “The OG be here!” The “original gansta” showed up in his mom’s ride, complete with vanity plate reading “2CUTE4U”.

That’s when I lost it and had to call the outing to an end, lest the “OG” take offense.

He might have been mad enough to call his mom, and with a ride like that you know she's a badass.