ALERT: Mean Mom Loose in Okemos, Michigan

Children in Okemos, Michigan are in the midst of spring break, enjoying a hard earned eleven day vacation. Some youngsters are being treated by their parents to exciting trips to far-away places. Others are engaging in extended play time with school friends, staying up much past usual bedtimes, and even sleeping in until noon.
Sources have learned, however, the children of Karen Hossink are not among these lucky youngsters.
Mrs. Hossink was spotted Sunday afternoon in her yard, raking several years' worth of dead foliage from once-beautiful gardens. "Mr. Small never did any garden work," said Hossink's neighbor. "He mowed the grass and that's it." Hossink just sighed and went back to work, wishing the previous owner of her home would have kept up with the yard work better.
All this yard work meant nothing to Mrs. Hossink's children Sunday. They played happily, hardly noticing the work their mother was doing. It wasn't until her trip to the grocery store Monday, and a purchase of ten yard-waste bags, that the Hossink children smelled their doom.
On this Monday afternoon, when other children on spring break were playing on warm beaches in Florida or California, were eating their fill of pizza at Chuck E. Cheeses, or were rushing down the slide at some wonderful in-door water park somewhere, the Hossink children were helping their Mean Mom stuff ten yard-waste bags full of sticks, dead leaves, and rotting foliage.

Young Matthew bailed on them early on, but Elizabeth and Joshua were troopers right up to the end. Though, the end isn't really the end. Sources say the reason Mrs. Hossink allowed her children to stop working was not because they complained of being tired, not because they were getting scraped by sticks and prickers, not because high winds made it difficult to fill the bags, but simply because they ran out of bags. More yard waste remains on the ground and sources say, when she gets back to the store to purchase more bags, Mrs. Hossink will be enlisting the help of her children to finish the job.

Although Karen Hossink has admitted to making her children work during their spring break, thereby accepting the label of Mean Mom, it is believed she is harmless to other children. Those individuals who had previously asked Mrs. Hossink to watch their children for a few hours later this week should proceed with their plans, without concern for the well-being of their precious off-spring. Mrs. Hossink promises she will abide by all applicable child labor laws from here on out.