who's at the door??

Our neighbors across the street have a 17 year old daughter (let's call her M). We met them earlier in the week. The next day, M saw one of our boys outside and asked if they wanted to go for a walk. We're kind of strict about the whole boy/girl thing, but it was both boys, so we let them go. The next day, they went for a walk again. 

Now, last night, I'm in the kitchen and someone is at our gate. Floyd goes to the door and answers. Tyler comes into the kitchen and says M messaged him to see if they could go for a walk, but he figured he should wait to "see what this is about" before I answer.

I ask, "see what what is about?"

Tyler says, "that's her dad talking to Dad."

Now we're all wondering what he's talking to Floyd about. Now, to be clear, I don't have concern that the boys did something seriously bad, but more that one of them might have said something insensitive, or talked about a subject that would be considered inappropriate, or something else that is just awkward. 

Floyd comes in and tells me, "whew, that went way better than I was expecting." You see, when he saw who was at the door, he also thought, "oh great, who said something or did something that I'm going to have to apologize for? (I sort of feel like we're mean parents, but our work is sensitive in nature and being in a new place, we'd like to have a decent relationship with out neighbors. Of course, as I high school teacher, I also know very well that most kids are not innocent, so I don't generally jump to defense immediately.)

We're about to eat dinner, so Floyd says, "boys we need to talk."

Now the mean part is that Floyd gave them a chance to "confess" any thing that they said or did that might have been questionable. Fortunately, neither of them had anything come to mind. 

Finally, Floyd said, "well that's good, because he just invited me to a men's breakfast at his church in the morning."

We had a good laugh and after dinner the boys went for a walk with M. She invited them to an activity with her youth group this afternoon, so they're looking forward to that.