Teenage Pranks Infant Fire Chief Helmets and Women's Bikinis

Now we all know that teens have a sometimes outrageous look at life and will do things that none of us adults would ever do. Well in my little sleepy town there is a band of 15 and 17 year old boys who do just that! As the parent of the ring leader, I admit at times I get very angry at the pranks but sometimes I laugh my butt off.

Last year while recovering at home with a badly sprained ankle and trying to sleep as it was about 2 am I get a phone call from our local police officer. I am unsure of what to do, laugh or run away in shame. The phone call begins like this "Hello Mrs. Browne, this is officer VanFleet from Athens Township and I have your son here with a few of his friends and your son is the only one dressed!" My mouth dropped open and I am wondering to admit if this is for real or not! The officer asked if I would come and get them and I said okay but it may take me awhile as I was on crutches and in a cast. He agreed to bring the four boys to me.

So I am waiting for the officers to bring the boys here, alternating between laughter and anger. When the officers pulls up in front of my house a few minutes later with Alex (my 16 yr old), Elliott (my 15 year old nephew), Derek (a family friend who is 17) and Noodle (another 15 year old friend) I try to keep a straight face. The officer I spoke with briefly tells me the boys are not in trouble tonight but that I should keep a closer eye on them. He then turns to the boys and tells them to keep their clothes on and laughs. The officers had put the boys in two police vehicles and delivered them with lights flashing and I was thinking to myself, 'just go away or turn off those damn lights'. I wonder what my neighbors thought of this. Both officers laugh and tell the boys goodnight and climb into their vehicles and the boys and I go inside. I was prepared once the door closed behind me to yell but one look at these boys standing there in infant fire chief hats and red bikini briefs brought my to uncontrollable laughter. I could not yell at them and asked for an explanation once I could talk again.

Elliott speaks up and begins to enlighten me in his fast paced humorous way. "Well Aunt Amy it's like this, we went into Wal-Mart and playing as we usually do and we got an idea" he stops to laugh and another boy chimed in.

"We went to the baby section and found these neat little hats" Derek says holding up a little hat you'd see an infant wearing and it resembles a fire helmet and read little fire chief.

"Then we had to find shorts to wear with it, but we could not find any that would fit us, in the baby section, and since the women's section was close by," Alex says and breaks off with laughter and is joined by his friends.

"We got women's underwear and bought them to wear with our hats!" exclaimed Elliott.

"oh my god!" I replied when I could talk. "How did get them on?" I know they had to purchase them and I doubted they would walk out of Wal-Mart like that.

Alex tells how they walked behind a nursery that sits beside Wal-Mart and he tells me how these others changed between the trees and shrubs behind the building. Alex was taking a video of all of this for his myspace and that is why he kept his clothes on. The video didn't work, so it never made publication.

After emerging from behind the nursery in their 'fireman outfits' they ran across 3 lanes of traffic to cut through a local grocery store parking lot and that was their downfall. That grocery store sits right beside the Athens Township police department, but I guess they were having too much fun to remember that. They were seen running across the parking lot and no doubt officer Vanfleet was laughing as he radioed ahead for the other cops to come and see this. Soon the 5 local police departments were on scene and laughing at these boys, and I am sure even now a year later they are still laughing when they think about it.

The boys were nicknamed the "red riders' that night and through out the summer they made an appearance lots of places, including football games, and homecoming parades. No one knew the boys names because they'd wear hats that covered their faces, bags with eyes cut out of them or wig to change their looks. At times it was the 4 boys mentioned in the early part of this story but others would join 2 or 3 of the original 'red riders'.

Halloween time rolled around and Alex and Elliott were joined by Kyle who was a 16 year old friend and they went trick or treating as the 'red riders'. I am adding a picture of them so you can see how they looked. The fire chief hats were replaced with Santa hats. Now imagine these three coming to get your treats! It was mentioned over the police scanner that the 'red riders' had been spotted.