I recently wrote about my mother forcing me to go back and pay for a soda-pop I drank that someone else had stolen. I am thankful for a mother who demanded I do the right thing.

Then this morning, I read an abhorrent news article about six Florida teenagers between 14 and 16 years old who burglarized a home, stole four firearms, a Porsche Cayman, and $200,000 in cash. The Porsche was recovered. The firearms were “thrown in the trash” according to the youths. The money was all spent in a wild shopping spree. In addition to buying gold teeth and gold chains, they apparently loved their mothers dearly. One mother got a new Dodge Challenger. Another got an apparently used Mercedes. Another got an apparently used Audi. And a fourth mother got $40,000 in cash.

What were these mothers thinking, you reckon?

“Junior got him a job mowing grass this summer and bought me a new Dodge Challenger, paying cash for it,” mother #1 bragged to her friends.

“Extra-Junior got him a summer job cleaning pools and gave me a $40,000 cash gift,” said Extra-Junior’s proud mother to her friends, who included Double-Extra-Junior’s mother and Triple-Extra-Junior’s mother.

“Harrumph,” said Double-Extra-Junior’s mother. “Extra-Junior should have got him a job at McDonald’s like my baby. He saved up enough money to buy me an Audi.”

“Audi!! There ain’t nothing to no Audi,” declared Triple-Extra-Junior’s mother. “Triple-Extra-Junior earned enough money this summer selling Tupperware that he was able to buy me a Mercedes-Benz.”

All of the mother’s admired the entrepreneurship and get-up-and-go of their sons. They were proud that their sons thought first of them before thinking of themselves. They were glad they were raising up children to be a productive part of society: children who thought first of their mothers.

Not a single one of them suspected that any of THEIR children might have been involved with something illegal. You think?

I got into trouble for blabbing on myself about drinking an illicit Coca-Cola. I wonder what my mother would have done had I gifted her with an Audi and smiled at her with my new gold teeth?

I suspect my mother would have knocked those shiny new gold teeth right out of my mouth, then dropped me off at the dentist on the way to turn the Audi in at the Sheriff’s office, and to have deputies standing by to arrest me as soon as the dentist finished stitching up my bleeding gums.

Lord, save all the children from mothers whose avarice and greed would glorify or condone their child’s criminal behavior for their own personal gain!

Maybe one or more of the mother’s turned their sons in….or better yet, maybe they made their sons turn themselves in. Unfortunately, that was not reported.

I sure hope they did.

I’m not sure how it is in Florida, but you have to be 18 to buy an automobile in Mississippi. I wonder if any of those mothers accompanied their children to buy the cars?

There is increasing wickedness in the world.

It also seems more likely that an idiot, avaricious mother raises an idiot, avaricious son than it is an idiot avaricious son converts his mother to idiocy and avarice. After all, one might not unreasonably think one of the two is an adult.

So much for reason!

©2017 Mississippi Chris Sharp

©2017 Mississippi Chris Sharp