The last Homecoming toilet paper caper

I got it wrong in a recent post.

Homecoming is this weekend, not last weekend.

I was still getting dressed this morning when my wife called up the stairs. "Have you looked out the window?"

I had not. I don't generally gaze out of the windows. If rain or snow is predicted, I might take a peek to see whether the forecast appears accurate, but generally I only look outside when I go out the front door. I therefore responded in the time-honored tradition of cautious husbands everywhere. "No. Why?"

"We got TP'd last night!"

While there are of course other occasions on which a house may be TP'd, it is a lock-cinch certainty that, in these parts, on the evening prior to a school's homecoming game, the cheerleaders will go out and TP all the players' houses. I really don't know how the kids can toss rolls of toilet paper in the air, high into trees, and create a virtual two-ply fairyland of streamers. I particularly don't know how they can do it without making enough noise to wake me, especially during this change of seasons when my windows are open to take advantage of the outside air.

But the important aspect of my wife's announcement, as I thought it through, was not the fact it communicated but the tone in which it was rendered: She wasn't upset.

This has not always been the case. If you read the linked post you'll see that we got TP'd last year prior to the homecoming football game at the parish grammar school. Our three boys all played for the grammar school team in their day, but by last year, those days were long past. So, on that occasion, my wife was most definitely not amused.

But -- this morning -- Long Suffering Spouse went out and took pictures -- as a memento, not as evidence of a crime. She had to clear a path so we could get to the car and she found some more or less complete rolls that had been discarded by our midnight marauders. "I've got stuff to wrap the Christmas ornaments again," she told me.

When the house is TP'd for a proper purpose -- when an occupant of said residence is on the roster for the Homecoming football game, that is -- family tradition (firmly grounded in superstition) requires that the paper (or as much as possible) remain in the trees until after the game.

Older Daughter and her husband are coming up this weekend for a wedding in the western suburbs somewhere and they plan to stay with us tonight. Although they're supposedly going straight to the rehearsal dinner from Indianapolis, they may get to our house before we return from Youngest Son's game. They will no doubt ooh and aah a bit when they see the trees.

After tonight (unless the team makes the state playoffs and obtains a home game in that) there are only two more home games left in Youngest Son's football career. He's not the only one who'll be a little nostalgic about it. I'm a mess already.