The Soccer Mom Gang

In the spring of 2004, someone began repeatedly mailing me copies of the document shown above (with the names omitted here). Each time the basic page was the same, but anywhere from 2-5 names or sets of names were added or subtracted. Each copy was mailed separately, and all were mailed by themselves except this one, which was included in the envelope containing one of my children's report cards (meaning someone at the school added it or the envelope was tampered with).

The problem is that, like most things around here, this document is not at all what it seems; it's actually a very sick "insider" joke. All, or nearly all, of the persons listed on the documents are people my children and I have seen many, many times in the past few years doing very suspicious things under very suspicious circumstances. In fact, long before we ever received any of these documents, my kids and I had christened many of the women who were listed on the page "The Soccer Mom Gang" because we'd seen them so often under such strange circumstances that simply hadn't fit their normal roles in the community as "ladies who lunch".

For example, many times we'd see these women driving from one house to another making some sort of deliveries, usually in neighborhoods they normally wouldn't go near. Other times we'd see them or their husbands at unusual hours and in unusual places loading or unloading numerous items (usually in boxes or plastic shopping bags) into or out of strange vehicles like small trailers, rented trucks, or Suburbans. This loading and unloading often took place behind small office buildings or at the backs of parking lots.

In fact, at that time nearly all the women on the list drove Suburbans of different colors. We'd often see them pull up in front of someone's house, get out, hand their keys to someone else, and wait at the house until the other person brought their vehicle back. The persons borrowing the vehicles were nearly always people from much lower socio-economic levels that the Suburbans' owners normally would not associate with.

The other reason my children and I knew the list was not what it seemed was because we'd been harassed so much by these same people. Many of the persons on the list were some of the worst offenders as far as people who tailgated us with their headlights on, threw things in our yard and pasture, screamed and yelled things at us as they drove by repeatedly when we were outside, deliberately rammed me with their shopping carts at the store, sent us other harassing mail items (more of which I intend to post, since many are equally outrageous), disturbed us at all hours with prank calls, and MUCH more.

As you've probably guessed, the people whose names were listed on these documents also happen to be from many of the most wealthy and/or prominent families in our area--the kind of families others in the community look up to. (As you've also probably guessed, most of them are also people my ex-husband grew up with and knows very well. Interestingly, no members of my ex-'s family were ever on the lists, althouh we'd also observed them in similar situations and places.) I'm posting and discussing this here because it's such a good example of the kinds of role models our kids have and the kind of depraved, victimizing behavior kids here grow up believing is hilarious and fun and to be emulated.

The problems of our young people outlined in the editorial in the previous post should come as no great surprise to objective outsiders after seeing things like this. These same readers will probably also not be terribly surprised to learn that most of the families named on the list desperately try to conceal their own dysfunctional relationships, substance abuse, and other serious problems. I'm sure the facts that bullying and the various forms of physical and emotional abuse are enormous problems here are also not unexpected to outside readers who keep up with this blog.

The humor in such harassment is sick, the people who commit it are sick, and the community as a whole is very sick indeed. And none of them seem to be aware of what's really wrong, just as none of them seem to realize that they themselves are being conned on a massive scale by those they look to as leaders. These leaders seem to always know exactly how much money, social prestige, and fun to trickle down in order to keep the masses happy doing what they want (i.e., what makes the top of the pyramid the most money) and to keep them from figuring out that they're really being used and destroyed. It's heartbreaking to see people being victimized and victimizing each other on such a scale.