Raising kids in apartments

In many a conversation I've remarked how sad it would be to raise my children in an apartment. Now don't get me wrong, I've seen some fricken awesome apartments during my stay in New York. Once at a Hillary Clinton fundraiser that I volunteered at I couldn't tear my eyes away from the gorgeous penthouse view of Central Park. This joint had more square footage than my parent's two-story house. Plus it came with a full kitchen staff that the bitchy lady who owned it forced the Senator to meet and greet before the shindig began. If I were rich enough to own a penthouse with slaves, ahem, servants, I would move to the fricken burbs. I loved living in the suburbs. I love hopping in the car to drive (literally) across the street to pick up a carton of milk. I loved having a heated pool in the backyard (which we never used, it was there for show). I loved having a front yard on which all the neighbors dogs would come and crap. I loved watching the gardners come once a week and clean up after the dogs. But the thing I just might have loved most of all....was toilet papering other people's houses. My high school crew and I would go out fairly often and TP (as the kids these days call it) another, less cool individual's house. Myself, not being as fit as my friends, nor being the Captain of the soccer team, usually served as getaway driver. I was good at that job. I was also the only one sober. Prior to high school, in my not as cool years, I was the victim of a toiletpapering or two. The most traumatizing was the time my own soccer team had a sleepover that I was not invited to and they came and toiletpapered my house. But that not the worst part. The worst part was the girl's mom was frugal and instead of toiletpaper had them using shredded documents. Like bank statements, bills, and letters. My mom, pissed off cause she hates cleaning stuff up, went through the piles and deciphered a name from the statements. Discovering my teammate's father's name she didn't hesitate to call him on the phone at 7 AM Sunday morning. Needless to say, the girls all trekked back in their bathrobes to clean up the mess as my mom stood over them watching to make sure they didn't miss a piece. Time passed and my dad said I was going to be late for Sunday School. I hated Sunday School to begin with so having to leave the house and face the mortification made the circumstances far, far worse. But I did it, because a Jewish education is a sad thing to waste. The moral of this story is not the lesson I should have learned in junior high that I should have carried over to high school of not toiletpapering people's house because its thoroughly emabarrassing. No no. Its to not raise my children in an apartment. Why you might ask? Tonight I witnessed what may have been the saddest thing of my life. As I exited the A train on my way to basketball, I noticed that some kids had toiletpapered........the shrubbery in front of 10 Overlook Terrace. And a couple cars parked in front. Seriously, if we really believe the children are our future (sing it Whitney), we will give them lawns, and trees, and garages, and chimneys to toiletpaper. Not shrubbery. Seriously, I feel for them. My heart goes out.