Someone has spiked one of the back tyres on my car.
Well, I'm pretty sure they have. There is the chance that I've run over something sharp, but the car next to mine also has a flat tyre and though I suppose it's possible that we've both run over some glass on the road, I don't think that's what's happened.
My next door neighbour told me it's happened to him on a couple of occasions as well.
Although as a young man I experienced boredom and felt the thrill of unnecessary destruction (me and my friends spent some happy times in Shipham Wood throwing rocks at an old ruined building and enjoyed seeing parts of it crash to the ground thanks to our bombardment), this does seem a nasty and pointless way to get some kicks.
Mainly because, apart from the disappointing pleasure of seeing a tyre deflate, the real aftermath of the vandalism can only be imagined. You know unless you hang around for a few hours or days to see the owner of the car come out of his house, notice what's happened and then tut.
Milton's Satan said "Only in destroying find I ease", but even he would have found such petty destruction irritating and embarrassing.
"So you've put someone to some expense and inconvenience for no particularly good reason..... Hmmmm. I'm not sure I can accept you in Hell. We don't want your sort in here, mate. Sorry!"
I may be being judgemental (and there is an outside chance that it was not vandals at all) but I imagine a gang of young men is responsible for this. Much as I'd love to think of pensioners running around town with a sharpened knitting needle. So that's my third run in this week with the "yoot of today" (as the musical youth of yesteryear referred to them) and it's been interesting seeing the different ways in which they choose to vent their frustrations.
The problem is that we are idiots when we're teenagers and we don't necessarily consider the consequences of our actions, or if we do we don't care.
This isn't going to change.
Me and my friends could have chosen to decorate or even renovate that shell of a building in Shipham Wood, possibly make it into a little HQ for our gang. But it was easier and funnier and naughtier to smash it to pieces.
I sometimes wish I could go back and tell myself some things that would make my life have run better, but I know that even if I could have, the young me wouldn't have listened and wouldn't have understood.
That's why we keep making the same avoidable mistakes as the previous generation and why being the God of this predictable world must be frustrating, boring and infuriating.
I think the Devil must have the same attitude, though at least his adult supporters come up with increasingly sophisticated ways to cause death and destruction.
It's got to give him some ease.
