Katie, the girl who lives across the street, has a strict mother and a boyfriend. Neither would be a problem if the boyfriend had more brains than a radish.

At best, hormones are interfering with his higher brain function, which has made for an entertaining summer. There’s only been a moderate amount of tonsil exploration in the front yard–the boyfriend may be dumb but Katie certainly isn’t. So he’s forced to prove his love in other ways.

In May, he left flowers on Katie’s doorstep. Apparently strapped for cash, he borrowed the posies from her mom’s flower beds and might have gotten away with it if he’d cut the flowers and put them in a vase. But he chose to dig them up and repot them in his biker boot…and left a trail of mud from the bed to the porch.

Mom was less than amused, although she did get a Saturday of yardwork out of him when his parents found out.

In June, he serenaded Katie with love ballads at 1 AM. He’s not a gifted guitarist and his vocals left something to be desired but his ardor impressed even Mom. I could see her warming to the romanticism of it all. Then, with a flourish, he turned around, dropped his drawers and illuminated the words “Katie Katie Katie Katie” scrawled across remarkably hairy buttocks.

Mom called the police. They let him off with a warning. His parents didn’t–he was grounded for the rest of the month.

In July, Katie had a birthday. I looked out the window that morning to see my streetside trees and hers festooned in pink crepe paper, making a kind of bower. He’d painted her little red car with big pink and white hearts, attached enough red helium heart balloons to fly the thing to Hawaii, and capped it off with poetry on the windshield:

Happy birthday Katie hot
I love you a lot
I’ll ever hate you not
So show me what you got

Katie muttered the word “dork” under her breath but was obviously charmed by his sincerity. Mom’s a tougher sell and is recommending a new boyfriend.

And I can’t wait to see what he does in August.