Ms. Jester: Keep Whipping Butt, Lady

Edna Jester, an 89-year-old Ohio resident, was arrested because she refused to return a football that landed in her yard.

This was not the first time that a neighborhood kid's ball ended up on her property. She'd kept balls before, in fact. The kids there should have known this, and acted accordingly.

Instead of doing the intelligent thing and playing as far away from Jester's house as possible, a group of kids - one of them being in junior high, which means that he's definitely old enough to know better - played in the street, too close to Jester's house.

She kept their football when it landed in her yard. She was gardening. I imagine that she was tired of wondering if incoming toys would crush her flowers, or damage her plants.

And I don't blame her for temporarily keeping the toy. That's how cranky neighbors have handled stray toys for almost as long as we've had kids, neighborhoods, and airborne toys. If your stuff landed in a neighbor's yard, and he or she kept the object, you knocked on the door and politely asked to get it back. The neighbor would eventually return your stuff. And if you were smart, you stayed away from that yard the next time you dragged out that toy - otherwise, it might not be your toy anymore.

The father of the jr.-high boy - the "adult" who called the police on Jester - needs to switch breakfast cereals. He's eating way too many Stupid-Os, as evidenced by this whole situation.