Speaking with my sister this morning (Sunday evening Kansas City time) she was telling me how they received about six inches of snow the previous night so had taken my four-year old niece Emily out to make a snow man during the day.  While on the phone with my sister, there was suddenly a long silence and then I heard the door open and she shouted, “Hey!  Stop that!”

Never having heard her shout like that, I feared that perhaps my niece was being particularly naughty.

As it turned out, while she was sitting in the living room talking to me on the phone, a group of teenagers pulled up in a car, ran out and slaughtered the snow man in their front yard.  All this while my niece was watching.  Imagine the trauma and scarring!

So I spoke with her a few minutes later and she was recounting how her snow man, named Frosty, had been made with a carrot nose and coal eyes.  Then she told me that some boys had “bashed” Frosty and next time she would build the snow man next to the house, behind a wall.  Good planning.

I’m shocked, though, with such callous vandalism.  What does that forbode for when they become older?  Thievery?  Knocking over old ladies in their walkers?  Child abuse?  It isn’t a good sign.

Note: the photo is for representative purposes, only.