While out with friends, I met a cute guy this weekend. We had a great conversation over dinner and drinks, but I should have known something was about to go wrong when he called my cell phone before I could leave out of the parking lot of the restaurant.

I thought to myself, “He’s probably checking to see if I gave him a fake number or not.” So I let that slide. But the next day, the called me 5 times in a row. What’s up with that? Could that good looking physique and intellectual mind be all a facade for some deeper underlying issue?

Dude, we literally just met. Why are you calling me so often? Anytime a guy does something like that, it’s an instant turn off. You’re sending up red flags and you don’t even realize it. I hate to call him a Bugaboo, but right now he is. Guess I’m gonna have to tell him to lose my number if he keeps this up.

I had a meeting this morning and on my way back from the meeting, I drove past an elementary school. Today must be their graduation day for 5th graders. There were parents driving up and kids filing out of the cars. These 5th graders looked like they were in high school.

What is in the food that the youth are eating today? My friends and I are always comparing ourselves when we were younger to the youth of today. We were slim and short compared to how they look today. Girls breasts are damn near fully developed at age 12, boys sprouting goatees at age 13 and all of them look older than their age. I mean literally, their faces look old.

And don’t get me started on the childhood obesity that is running rampant in the United States. I didn’t realize how big of a problem until the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina in my area, and then I got a rough idea of how many overweight people there were in my state and Louisiana. Not just the adults, but the kids. It makes no sense that a little girl is in a size 9/10 at age 9.

And they don’t want to exercise or even go outside to play. Shit, that was mandatory in my household when I was growing up. Whether you wanted to or not, your parents sent you outside to play. There was no way you were going to sit up in your mama’s house all day and play Atari. You had chores to do and you went outside to play.

But because we’re in an era where technology is so overwhelming, kids today have computers, Playstations and Xboxes, iPods, etc. that we make it so convenient for them to have everything they want indoors that they don’t want to go outdoors. I’ve never seen so many lazy kids in my life.

I know what you’re thinking. Is Nikki a swinger? No, so you can get your heads out of the gutter. I am not a swinger, although that would make for one helluva post today, but that’s not what this is about.

I have an upcoming photo shoot and the theme is Swingers. You know, like the Psychedelic Era? I’m setting up a room furnished with swanky retro furniture to give the appearance of a swinging singles pad, but I need feedback from you guys as to what else I may need in order to help make the shoot look as authentic as possible.

Wardrobe for my models is covered, thanks to retro boutiques and donations from friends, but I need ideas for the setting, like lava lamps, etc. Anything else that you can think of would be greatly appreciated.

History: The device was invented in the late 1950s by Arthur Granjean, who first called it ‘L’Ecran Magique,’ or ‘The Magic Screen’. He tried selling it to toy manufacturers and eventually got the Ohio Art Company interested. Through television advertising in the 1960s, it became a popular toy.

Remember the commercial for the Etch-A-Sketch? Kids were drawing houses, trees, rockets, animals, etc. When I got the toy as a kid, all I could do was draw a house, and even that looked awkward. I never could make a damn circle without it looking like a raggedy oval, so I’d shake the toy and start over again.

After about an hour of shaking and starting over, I dropkicked my Etch-A Sketch across the room. I wanted my money back, because I couldn’t produce the masterpieces that the kids were creating with their Etch-A-Sketches in the commercial.

I mean you’d have to be either Rain Man or the Unibomber with a degree in Calculus and Quantum Physics to master this damn toy. And to add insult to injury, I have a damn degree in Art & Design, yet to this day, I still can’t get draw with this toy without my creations looking like I was suffering from Palsy on the right side of my body.

There’s a kid who lives a block up from me named Jamel (age 19). He has been terrorizing our neighborhood for the past year. As a matter of fact, he may have been the one who broke into my house this past fall, but that hasn’t been verified as of yet.

Anyway, on yesterday evening, he tried to attack my next door neighbor’s kid (age 15). On last week, he’d already beat the boy up and slashed his grandmother’s tires on her SUV, so she’d filed charges against him. And because she filed charges, he decided to come back this week for more retaliation.

So Jamel walked down our street while the neighbor’s kid was outside, and proceeded to beat him up once more. But this time the neighbor’s kid had backup. One of his friends was there waiting for Jamel. And when Jamel saw that he was outnumbered, he pulled out a knife.

The neighbor’s kid and his friend backed down when the knife was drawn. Jamel then proceeded to kick in the doors of the rental car of the neighbor’s kid’s grandmother. Remember, he’d already slashed the tires on her SUV, which is why she was driving a rental to begin with.

Another neighbor saw everything take place and he called the police, while trying to chase after Jamel. The police came in like 6 minutes. Guess they were already in the area, because normally they take like 45 minutes to get to my neighborhood when in essence, their precinct is only 10 minutes away. You do the math.

Anyway, the police knocked on my door to ask me if I knew Jamel’s last name and where he stayed. I gave the officer the information on Jamel, and then other neighbors started exiting their homes to give the officer a list of complaints regarding, who else……Jamel.

Seems like this wasn’t his first time slashing tires. He’d slashed another neighbor’s tires before, had attempted to break into another neighbor’s home, had stolen his own mother’s car, had thrown a rock through the window of a neighbor’s home because her daughter refused to date him, etc.

I knew Jamel was trouble, but I had no idea to what extent. But what alarmed me was the fact that out of all of the times he’d done something malicious in our neighborhood, this was the first time that anyone had filed charges against him.

What’s the use of having neighborhood meetings and Neighborhood Watch Associations if you’re not going to speak up? I was sooooo disappointed in my neighbors. And many of them are educators. They are the first ones to speak out at their perspective schools when a child is fuckin’ up, but won’t do shit in their own neighborhood. Ooooooh, I cannot begin to explain to you just how heated I am right now!