Honestly, Officer...part 3

Honestly, Officer seems to be a recurring theme around here...and here...and now here:

Last night around 9:40pm, I got a call from Mike, who was on his way to work.

"I ran out of gas," he said. "Can you come get me?"

A little irritated to have to leave the comfort of the couch, I slid my feet into some slippers, told Annie where I was headed and drove the 10 minutes to where Mike was stranded.

I picked him up and dropped him at work and made plans to put gas in the car in the morning after his shift was over so he could drive it home then.

Half an hour later, I was back on the couch, snuggled under some blankets, remote in hand to watch Grey's Anatomy. The phone rang and it was a friend from church. So I paused Grey's to talk to my friend.

During our conversation, call waiting chimed in. "Private Caller" read the caller ID (I love caller ID!). I don't mind if people I know call me at 10:30pm, but if you're not willing to make yourself known, I'm not going to answer. So I wrapped up the call with my friend and returned to Grey's Anatomy.

About 10 minutes later, I started getting a nagging feeling that I should check the voicemail. After dismissing the feeling a few times, I picked up the phone and punched in the access numbers to retrieve my messages.

First, of course, I had to wade through a dozen previously left, but never listened to messages. I finally got to the message from "unknown caller."

"Hello, this is the Deputy Foster from the Sheriff's Department..."

Boy, did that get me to sit up in a hurry.

"I'm calling to inquire as to why your car is parked on the shoulder of the road on 111th Street. Please return the call at..."

Hmmm? Is it illegal to leave a car parked on the side of the road? I don't know, but when a sheriff says to call back, I'm gonna call back. So I called the number the deputy had left and reached the dispatch operator. While she put me on hold to find out who had called me, I saw headlights pull into my driveway.

Yep. It was the deputy.

I met him at the door, the dispatch operator still on hold in my left ear.

The deputy was nice as could be, and probably just slightly too old to date Annie. He asked if I was Amy M...and wanted to know if I knew my car was sitting unattended on 111th Street.

I explained that yes, I did know. That my husband ran out of gas on the way to work, that I couldn't do anything about it right now because I had three sleeping children in the house, and that we would pick it up in the morning if that was ok.

The deputy said that was fine. They just were concerned because it was a nice car (obviously the fact that it was pitch black out hid the scrapes and dings on the outside and the crumbs and leftover juice boxes on the inside) and there was a half-eaten baloney sandwich left on the front seat. He and his partner wanted to be certain there was no foul play.

No. No foul play. But there will probably be a foul smell when we get back to the car to remove the baloney sandwich..

Honestly Officer...part 2

This is the second in what I hope will not be a series of false alarms in which the police are summoned...

Mike was out tonight at a basketball game. The kids were in bed -- the boys asleep and Annie reading. I was watching Grey's Anatomy on the DVR when all of the sudden I heard a wail outside the window.

I turned the volume down on the TV and listened. The wailing seemed to get a little louder and sounded like a baby on my front porch. But it also seemed to be cyclical, as if a recording were being played over and over.

I sat up, called Annie downstairs and muted the TV. She heard it too. An e-mail I received at some point in the past few years popped into my head. Hardened criminals place a tape recorder on your porch and play a recording of a baby crying. When the concerned homeowner opens the door, said criminals attack the homeowner, force their way into the house and commit innumerable heinous crimes.

I'm not making this up. Check it out here. Never mind that this link says the story is false. Just go with me here.

At this point, I'm freaking out a bit. I tried to peek out the window, but didn't want to come face to face with my ill-intentioned killer. So I did what every scared-for-her-life citizen would do, I picked up the phone and dialed 911.

I told the dispatcher about the wailing baby sound I heard outside my window. And I told her that my husband wasn't home. And that it probably wasn't anything, but I'd feel better if the police came to check it out.

Thankfully, the dispatcher was understanding, told me she'd send an officer out, and to call back immediately if I did see someone or if the sound seemed louder or closer.

Of course like a car making a funny noise stops when the mechanic gets behind the wheel, the scary wailing baby noise stopped as I hung up the phone. I looked outside to see Mike pulling in the driveway. I told him what happened and he went to check things out while I waited for the police, who arrived about a minute later.

That's when Mike and the police discovered the cat footprints -- our cat's footprints -- on the front porch, right below the window where I was sitting.

At least the officers did a really nice job of trying not to laugh until they got back into the patrol car.

Honestly, Officer, it was just a little mix-up...

Mike called me this morning from his parents house around 8:30am -- which is 7:30am in Southern Indiana. I was a little surprised to hear from him so early, but even more surprised when he said, "You're gonna want to blog about this!"

Apparently Charlie woke Mike up early this morning and said, "Dad, I want to get my Nintendo DS." He had left it in the car when they arrived at my in-laws last night.

"I'll get it in a minute," Mike told Charlie as he rolled over to go back to sleep.

A little while later, Charlie woke him again. "Dad, I want to get my Nintendo DS but the door is locked."

Realizing that Charlie had already been outside and didn't know to turn off the security system before he opened the back door, Mike quickly got up. Heading downstairs in his boxers and t-shirt, he saw the back door standing open and heard the soft "beep-beep-beep" of the alarm system, indicating that the silent alarm had been triggered.

Mike walked to the back door and reached for the knob of the storm door just as a police officer was reaching for the knob on the other side of the storm door. The officer moved back quickly and put his hand near his holster.

"Sorry, Officer, there's been a mix-up," Mike tried to explain. He informed the officer whose house it was and that he was visiting from out of town.

"My son wanted to get his video game from the car and opened the door without turning off the alarm."

The officer seemed unconvinced.

"I can get my driver's license," Mike offered.

"Yeah, you're want to get something," the officer answered, though upon hearing the story, I wondered if the officer was referring to Mike's driver's license or his pants.

"The security company has already called a neighbor to come over, too," the officer informed Mike.

The neighbor turned out to be Buck, Mike's 89-year-old grandmother who said, "Well, now I know that you made it to town!"

A few minutes later, the officer was on his way to a real emergency, Charlie was breathing a sigh of relief that he wasn't arrested, the rest of the house was awake and hungry from all the excitement, and I had a topic for today's blog entry.