My neighbor got tp'ed for the nth time. Dozens of rolls of toilet paper hanging from their trees and shrubs. It was everywhere! It was awful. They get TP'ed a lot. The first time I saw it, I was enraged. I thought: what idiot would do this to my nice neighbors? But what perplexed me more was the mixed reaction to this awful deed. While the mom of the house was just sick about it, the husband took it all in stride. With a shrug of his shoulders, he was out in the hot triple digit desert sun trying to clean up his yard. And over and over, he does this. His patience and lack of indignation puzzled me. So I asked my husband about it. He said it was a common practice where he grew up to tp someone's house when you like them.
Whoa. What? Okay. I know I am a foreigner in these here lands but for Pete's sake--HOW does anyone get flattered by being tp'ed? I mean, those things are not easy to clean up. The paper gets wet and turns to mush. Heaven forbid it happens at night and your sprinklers come on---and in the morning, you get papier mache stuck to your trees, your shrubs, your house, your gate....and you have to scrape them off!! It is easy to throw the rolls to the tops of the trees so they unravel and hang everywhere but try removing them from the tall trees! It's not an easy task.
My husband also told me that sometimes, they 'fork' your yard. This is when they put hundreds of plastic forks all over your lawn thus destroying your landscape. This is also a sign that they like you. Worst even, some use eggs to "egg" your house effectively ruining the exterior paints and clean up is impossible. The damages are monstrous. But apparently, this is supposed to be flattering. HAVE THESE PERPETRATORS GONE BONKERS? And if they are really nice people, why don't they come and help my poor neighbors, who by the way, are just the nicest people, to clean up?
Yesterday, I saw their cute 16 year old cleaning up the yard and I asked her if she knew who did it. She did. It was a boy who has a huge crush on her. I am surmising that this is how he shows his affections for her. I told her that he needs to get his butt in so he can clean the mess up! Well, she just smiled demurely and said it's almost cleaned up anyway. Super nice girl and I thought: hmmm......this does not compute, why is SHE the one cleaning it up and not the nice boy who did it and for some reason, I can't seem to find anything good about it. What was the boy trying to prove here? I mean, as he was doing it, was he thinking: hmmm...tall trees...let me just throw this roll higher so it's harder to remove. Was this in his head? And if this thought did run across his head, what did he want to accomplish or prove? I was getting a headache so I stopped thinking.
Being a foreigner and obviously therefore, a non-Utahn, I am mortified by this 'tradition'. NO ONE better do this to me because I am going to get militant about it and call the police for vandalism. Try as I may, I just can't compute this tradition to 'showing affection' or showing that you like someone. It's tantamount to showing someone you love them by breaking their face. I can see it now. A Hallmark moment: SHOW SOMEONE YOU CARE: Get a crowbar and break all the windows in their car...or get an ice pick and punch their tires. Or, buy a hundred rolls of toilet paper and tp their house. Make sure you add some eggs just to emphasize the point. And then a slow-mo shot of a girl coming out of her house with her hair flowing in the air, and then a smile on her face as she sees her car and yard vandalized. "Oh my gosh! Jim loves me so much!", she gushes as she touches her car-full of eggs and toilet paper and dreamily floats along her trees all covered with strips of toilet paper. Yeah, that computes.
I was researching this confusing tradition on the 'net and every blog, forum and news article comfirms to me that this is done when you DON'T like someone or as a vendetta against, for instance, a bad teacher or the coach of an opposing football team. So I am now of the opinion that this dastardly act of tp'ing a house to show affection or appreciation is intrinsic only to Utah....and Utahns alone. And then, mostly in Utah county---the Provo, Orem, Pleasant Grove, American Fork...etc....area. This further proves to me that perhaps, some in-breeding HAS occurred in those parts. I mean, come on...it's warped logic at the very least and INSANE at the most realistic!
Again, as a foreigner, I have to assimilate well. I've even bought boxes and boxes of full-sized Snickers, Mars, Twix, KitKat and Baby Ruth bars to give away on Halloween---the most confusing American tradition to me. (Aw come on! What the hell does it mean when kids knock on your door saying "Trick or Treat?" I mean, one time, a group of them came and yelled those very words, I just stood at the door and said: OK...Trick! And nothing happened. I mean, those poor kids just looked at me perplexed. So, I had to give them candy and off they went. And what do we celebrate anyway? Ghosts? Goblins? Witches? I mean, WHAT'S THE SIGNIFICANCE? What does Halloween teach? Nothing. Just another perplexing tradition when we send our children to knock on strangers' doors to ask for candy after 364 days of reminding them not to talk to strangers at any time. Yeah! Just another mindless tradition culled from the darkness of Paganism and probably, a little of the dark religions.... yeah...While other countries have religious festivities honoring God, in the US, we honor witches, vampires, the macabre....Think about it!) I've accepted Halloween like a good naturalized American and happily give out chocolate and candies to children whose parents will tell them when they get home that they can't eat the treats anyway because their teeth will rot. Great exercise in confusion and irony, I guess. But I accept it. I participate. Most of the time, even happily.
But the point is, while Halloween doesn't require me to get out and scrub off dried up toilet paper, TP'ing someone's house to show affection cannot fly with me. I just cannot accept this warped reasoning. And I don't care if it's a Utah tradition or an LDS tradition. It just plain sucks.
Postscript:
I just found out that tp'ing someone's house to show them that you like them is also done "a lot" in southern California. Interesting. There is a lot of this culture that I don't understand.
New POSTSCRIPT:
I find it fascinating that since I've written this blog, I've heard from a few LDS people DEFENDING this act as truly a way to show that you like someone. WOW. I am so shocked. In fact, a couple of them were very defensive about this.
Try as I might, I still can't see how this is going to make me feel like I am liked or appreciated. Am I just insane?
