Conflicted or "You Can't Fix `Stupid`"

I often got for about a two-mile walk after I get home, change clothes and feed the critters. This evening, across the street, I saw a sight which conflicted me.

There is a commercial building that is unoccupied after business hours. The land it is on is about four feet above the grade of the street; the grass slopes down at about a 30deg angle to the street. On the top of the grade, some kids had laid a couple sheets of plywood so that they could get up a little bit of speed and jump their skateboards into the air and try to land on the skateboards on the sidewalk or the street.

The street has some traffic in the evening, so the kids had to stop a lot. None of those kids had any kind of safety gear whatsoever; no helmets, pads, wrist guards, nothing.

I thought briefly about calling the cops, but decided not to. Yes, one of those kids could land the wrong way and bust his fool skull open on the curb. They might cut it close one time and go into traffic. The kids knew that that were misbehaving; I heard one remark: "If my mom knew I was doing this, she'd be pissed."

But I couldn't see what calling the cops would do that would be any good. More than likely the kids would just be pissed off at the Officer Krupke who was unfortunate enough to get the call. Nothing would change except the cops and the kids would have another reason to be angry with each other.

So I let it go.