My sister and I were ’80s latchkey kids. Most of our after-school days were spent with other latchkey kids doing what most latchkey kids do. 

On our street there were two factions of latchkey kids: the blonde kids on the corner and the kids next door. My sister and I belonged to the latter—our membership had more to do with proximity than ethnicity. More often than not our factions played together, created mischief together and, on rare occasions, we banded together and took up arms (rocks and water balloons) against other latchkey kids from other streets in our neighborhood. The ‘80s were magnificent. 

As we all got older, the factions began to splinter. The meaner little brothers and little sisters took hold of leadership and began warring amongst themselves. The blondes on the corner became hostile and drove the kids next door to band together with the kids from a street over and the war began. 

At first it was fistfights at the bus stop and bikes being trashed in the front yards. No one knows what caused the fight to escalate, but I’m ashamed to say that my sister and I were involved. It happened one afternoon when our parents were gone. The neighbor boys came over and asked if they could pick up our dog poop. We should have said no. 

Happily we led them to the back yard and allowed them to gather all the poop. We should have stopped them when they asked to go through our fridge for all the yucky leftovers. Instead, we gave them a bag. We dumped containers of old green beans and leftover macaroni and cheese into the bag. We should have stopped there but Tammie and I both knew that shoved in the way back was always a Country Crock container of rotten beans so we dug deep until we found it and dumped it in the bag. It might as well have been a nuclear bomb. 

Before we knew it we were gathering the contents of the dish drainer, some still-good cottage cheese and a few pickled jalapenos for good measure. It wasn’t our fight but we were arming the kids next door and we were drunk with power. 

We didn’t really understand what we had done until we got word of the attack. The boys from next door, armed with sacks of dog turds and grocery bags of rotten leftovers, attacked the blondes at dawn. They pelted the house on the corner with everything they had. 

I still cringe to think about how they carried out this attack. Were they so crazed that they used their bare hands? We just don’t know. All we know is when the blonde kids’ mom got home, she was pissed and knew exactly who to blame. Luckily the latchkey code of honor kept the next-door boys from disclosing the source for their arms, and Tammie and I were in the clear. 

It was a close call. We didn’t learn our lesson and she and I went on to shove a bunch of cats in the neighbor’s front window when they weren’t home but that’s a story for another day. Remember… War: what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. 

Cassina Farley can be contacted at cassinaandzachfarley@msn.com