I had kind of a disturbing thing happen at racquetball today.  We had five of us there today so I got to wait in between games a little while. A couple of guys had come in to play on the other courts.  The one guy had a couple of teenage boys with them that were his sons.  They were sitting down at the other end. Ruth had been counting the money from the vending machines and then came and sat down by me to chat.  All the sudden the boys took off out the door.  Ruth looked on the table where she had set the money and it was gone.  She took off after the boys and a minute later brought them back in and sat them down on the bench.  She said "I know you took the money...just give it back and I won't get your dad involved"  First they both said "no way, we didn't do it" Then  Ruth said, "OK, I'll have to tell your dad then"   The younger boy said "wait, here's the money I took" and pulled it out of his pocket and gave it to Ruth.  He said "I'm sorry"
Ruth said "there was more than this... where is the rest of the money?"  the younger boy told the older one to give it to her but the older one said "I don't have any money, I didn't do it!"  So Ruth poked her head in the room these guys were playing and said she needed to talk to the boys dad.  He came out and Ruth told him what had happened.  The dad really kept it together pretty well and calmly told the older boy to give Ruth the money right now.  The kid was very defiant to his dad and talked to him so rude  He was like " I don't even want to be here, why did you make me come to this stupid place?"  The dad said he had to take the boys to the dentist after he played racquetball or he wouldn't have brought them.  The dad kept insisting that the boy empty his pockets and the younger boy was like"Ya don't be a jerk...just give her the money" The older kid just swore profusely at the younger and would not admit that he had taken the money.  He even pulled out his front pockets to show he didn't have the money in them.They were really yelling at each other now and I was afraid it was going to get physical cause the dad was grabbing the kid now and the kid was swinging and pulling away.  He broke free and ran out the door.  He was only gone about  15 seconds though and  then came back in the room where we were sitting there with our mouths hanging open.  Then the dad insisted that the kid empty his back pockets cause the money had to be somewhere.  The kid let his dad search all his pockets....they were empty.At this point, the dad was really puzzled.  He said "I'll just give you what ever is missing Ruth...I don't know what he did with it."  I just felt so bad for him. You could see he was just dying of embarrassment and so angry at his son.  Then Ruth was like " I'm sorry I had to make a big deal about this...it wasn't that much money...I just thought you should know.  The dad said "Well if he gets away with a few dollars now, it will probably be even more next time...he's already stealing out of my wallet. 
Just then the other ladies came out of the court so Susan and I went in to play.  I was glad to get away from the whole situation!  When we got finished, the guys had all left.  Ruth said the boy had never admitted to taking the money, but they had figured he must have done something with it when he ran out the door.  They had gone out in the lobby and looked around and found the money thrown under the vending machine.
Ruth was pretty fired up and I was actually pretty disturbed  too.  It made me so sad for this man to see his son talking to him like he did.   There was no respect at all. I thought about the future for this kid. He was a very angry, defiant young man. 
I thought about the relationship that KC and Kelley have and was reminded again of what a blessing that is. I am so grateful that we don't live with contention in our home.  I know I kind of live in a bubble, but after the sick feeling I had after witnessing what I did this morning, I am very content to stay in my sheltered  little world indefinitely.