Yanking Christmas lights
A tradition of adolescent holiday vandalism
(March 9th, 2008 / 0 comments)It was something we did every year around Christmas time. A bunch of us would gather at Ben's house and wait in the camper out back until nightfall, putting on our darkest clothes and hoodies in the flimsy warmth of an undersized space heater and listening to Lords of Acid.
Let the adventure begin
After darkness fell, we would creep out of the camper and make our way down the snowy street, careful to stay hidden behind bushes, trees, trash cans and parked cars - away from the headlights of oncoming vehicles. We took turns in the lead, dashing across exposed areas and signaling the rest of the group when we sure the coast was clear.
We were on a mission - a mission that we had labeled "low-impact vandalism", which was a nice way of saying that we planned on messing with other people's things without actually destroying them or causing too much permanent damage.
Yanking Christmas lights
Our primary directive on these cold nights - yanking Christmas lights. Ben's neighborhood was a good choice for this since I lived in a state park with no neighbors and Bert lived in an apartment building of grouchy scrooges. In Ben's neighborhood we had blocks and blocks of single family homes, each of them trying to out-decorate their neighbors for the holidays. Plenty of targets.
The act of yanking Christmas lights was simple. We would stake out a house, sneaking through the surrounding yards and hedges, and determine how many power outlets were in play. Sometimes people would string all of their lights together from one outlet, making the operation very simple. Other times, it was virtually impossible to locate each string's origin.
After gathering the proper information, we would separate into as many teams as necessary to pull all of the lights at once. Each group would sneak up to the proper outlet and wait.
Ready, set...yank!
One group was tasked with pulling the most noticeable string of lights - usually the one around the entrance to the house. This was always the most dangerous job, as many times these lights were plugged up on the front porch itself, within feet of the well-lit and very visible front door.
This team acted as a signal for the rest of us. Once this string of lights was pulled, the other groups of yankers would pull theirs, plunging the house into darkness. Our missions complete, we would all run for our lives in the some pre-determined direction.
Running through a winter wonderland
There's nothing more exciting when you're a kid (an even these days as a slightly older kid) than feeling like you're about to get caught for doing something naughty. Running through the winter air as fast as we could, laughing our heads off, our breath turning to swirling ghosts behind us, was the ultimate thrill.
Our escapades probably made little to no impact on the victims. Most of them likely never even noticed that all of their holiday decorations had instantaneously gone dark.
Those that did notice probably watched us noisily stampeding through their bushes, high-fiving each other and laughing hysterically, and maybe recalled a time in their lives when the adrenaline ran freely and there was excitement around every bend.
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