The Freelance Retort: We Wuz Robbed!

Z has a habit of looking out the window into the front yard whenever she gets up in the middle of the night to do whatever it is people do in the middle of the night.

She’s been doing this going on 10 years now.

For the most part, she takes a quick look and then goes back to bed.

Until the other night….

The other night she had the pleasure of spying a young man of about 18 –or as the police described him, “male Caucasian, dark bushy hair, 18-20, navy blue T-shirt and green, possibly grey, baggy shorts heading in the direction of…” well, you get the idea.

This wayward fellow was poking around in Z’s car, looking for, I guess, her stash of Brooks & Dunn CD’s.

I’m sound asleep since it’s about 1 AM, so when Z wakes me to inform me of the situation my first instinct is to roll over and wish the fellow good luck sorting through the collected inventory of Z’s car. Perhaps he might be able to find that pair of sneakers I lost in there in 05.

Then she tells me he’s heading down the driveway toward my car and I immediately jump out of bed and call 911. No one is going to mess with my collection of Snapple tops!

Besides, if he gets into the backyard and into my garage, my leaf blower is in jeopardy.

A man must protect his leaf blower.

“911—what’s your emergency?”

“Well I’m not really sure it qualifies as an emergency, officer, but my wife just spotted a kid in my driveway, poking around in her car".

“Do you have a description of the “perp”?”

Actually I’m not sure if he said “perp” but I want to believe that he did, and it makes for a better story.

“No sir, it’s kind of dark and I’m cowering in my bedroom window, so it’s hard to see. But I’m concerned he’s heading down the driveway and into my back yard towards the garage….where my leaf blower is.”

“Gas or electric?”

“Uh…electric?”

“Hmmmm….I find gas gives you more power, not to mention mobility.”

“Well, I find the electric is not as noisy and has plenty of power for my needs.”

In the meantime, Z is standing there listening to this exchange thinking that her situation is not being taken seriously enough.

She just doesn’t understand there’s a process involved.

“Okay, sir; suit yourself. I’ll send a car over right away to check things out".

I tell Z, not to worry; it’s under control and then proceed to pick out suitable crime scene attire, in case I end up dodging bullets or in some sort of high speed pursuit.

Plus I’m stalling for time waiting for the cops to arrive before stepping foot outside.

Z looks out the window again and finds the “perp”, or someone we think is the “perp” who might be just some poor innocent kid walking home from his girlfriend’s house, calmly crossing the street, pass under a street light and turn the corner of the street that runs “perp”-endicular into mine.

The police car pulls up and I wait a minute or two, just in case the fellow we saw is not the ‘suspect” and there is still the danger of an altercation with the real “skel” (This is so cool. I knew all those hours watching NYPD Blues would pay off someday!).

Z, still not understanding there’s a process to these things yells out the window to the 12 year old police officer, who’s standing around on the front lawn, scratching his head, that her husband is on the way down to fill him in…so now I have no choice but to get out there.

I rummage quickly through the hall closet but have no idea where my bullet proof vest is, so I have to go “commando”…so to speak.

I fill the young, but extremely polite and competent officer in on the situation and he tells me that he took a quick look around and didn’t see anything suspicious, except for the ineffective electric leaf blower in the garage.

In the meantime, he’s barking information as to the suspect’s “twenty” into his walkie talk (short for walkie talkie) and 2 more police cars zip by the house and tear around the corner in hot pursuit.

I take a walk over to check out Z’s car and see the glove compartment open and report this fact to the officer, who peeks into the widow.

“Wow…looks like he really ransacked the vehicle” the officer says.

I tell him, “Uhm...no…this is pretty much what the inside of the car looks like on most days”

I grab the handle and open the door and immediately start berating myself for disturbing the crime scene.

Have I learned nothing from CSI?

“Sorry,” I tell the cop. “I guess now they’ll have to take my prints too to exclude them.”

He smiles at me politely and informs me that the crime scene boys probably won’t have to come out if we don’t find anything of value missing, which there doesn’t appear to be.

I inform him about my missing sneakers from 05 and he says he’ll make a note for the report.

Z, after finally picking out her own police activity outfit, appears on the scene and inventories the car, since she is the only one who can decipher the puzzle of shopping bags, empty water bottles, umbrellas and assorted pairs of shoes, within.

She reports that the only thing that appears missing is a small change purse that she kept for parking meters and such. She thought there was about $4.65 in it.

And now I’m really irate….a confirmed victim of a heinous crime.

Eventually, we roll up the crime scene tape, which I insisted on, and everyone gets on with their lives.

Except for me…