Thursday, May 29, 2014

With Friends Like This

What Else Do I Need?

The past two days have been busy. All of which leads to the latest episode in my continuing adventure of life.

I was out to a political meeting on Tuesday and did not get home until late. There was a phone message from a friend but it was too late to call her back. The next morning, I got a call at 6:30 AM to substitute teach, so I could not call her then. After school I had a chiropractor's appointment with physical therapy, so I rushed home from school, fed the Boys and drove back to the doctor. Immediately after, I had my friend drive me over to the school where I used to teach to pick up my truck--it was being serviced in the school's auto shop. As payment for carting me around, I took my friend out to dinner.

I got back home around 9 PM or so.

There was at least one police car in my driveway. I thought perhaps the patrol had pulled over a speeder and they'd pulled in to give him a ticket. But as I got out of the truck, a police officer approached me, shined a flashlight in my face and asked my name, and how old I was.

When I told him, he said, "We've been looking for you."

Wha...????

He said something about horses...a fall from one, or something, I'm not sure as not of it made too much sense. Then he said someone had called the police looking for me and they'd come over to my house to see if I was OK.

The story weaved and bobbed in my head. Who?  Turns out the friend I had not called back had tried to call me again last night and when she could not get in touch with me, her vivid imagination took hold. She was convinced I was lying dead or injured somewhere.

After calling a couple of my friends to see if they had heard from me--well, she got in touch with Stacie but not Don--she found out I had been alive and kicking on Saturday, but Stacie had not heard from me since. (Now, mind you, Stacie was not worried at all.)

At this point, things escalated. My worried friend, Celia, called the police to see if there was a power outage in my area so that my phone might not be working. I'm not sure what else she said except that she was trying to contact me and had not been able to. (She'd told Stacie I "never went anywhere," so why wasn't I home to return her call)

The upshot was that the police cruised on over to my house to check things out. They searched the barn, then decided to search the house. I'd left a window in the front open a crack, so one officer cut the screen, pulled it off, climbed in through the window and "searched the premises."

I'd gotten a package of horse supplements several days ago that I'd left on the front porch since it was too heavy to carry in. I'd planned on opening it and dishing out some of the stuff to lighten the load, but hadn't yet moved it. So when the police saw the package, they figured I really hadn't been home. Once inside, they found another package I had taken in and were preparing to trace it to see when it had been delivered. Then they found my roladex with all my phone numbers and started calling people listed there. Heaven knows how many people they called.

The one officer also noted that they knew I had two vehicles and did see that one of them was missing. What other information had they used to check up on me??  Heaven only knows.

The Sergeant had one of the officers carry the heavy package into the house for me. The officer copied down information about my identity, and eventually, they left. What I had thought was one police car and a speeder was actually three patrol cars in my driveway.

The phone rang. It was my friend, Richard who'd driven me to pick up my truck. He'd seen the police when he passed my house. Then my cousin called from South Jersey--another friend had called them after he'd been called by the police. I had to call another friend who'd been contacted. I called Stacie who had apparently been grilled by the police in a phone call--she lives nearly an hour away. And, of course, I called Celia, the instigator of the whole affair.

The only good thing was that I'd left that window open. The Sergeant told me if the window hadn't been open they would have broken down a door to get in.

Now I have a dilemma. I do not, at the moment have any immediate neighbors. (Long story there....) I guess I need to get someone else to know where the key to my house is hidden should something actually happen to me. Obviously, I can't call someone every time I leave the house. Celia has sworn she will never do something like this again, so that's good, but it does raise the issue of what might have been if something had gone wrong.

I mean, it's nice to have friends who care, but this was over the top.

And now I have to patch the hole in a perfectly good window screen.

3 comments:

  1. Kuddos to the police who responded to a what might have been situation and took it seriously. (Although there may have been a bit of ageism in their concern:)
    In our neighborhood, we hide our spare keys at one anothers houses. If found by a burglar they are useless but we have a spare key available to us, if needed. Could you put a note by the door: "In case of emergency call xyz"

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  2. difficult situation either way. had you been lying there having been dumped from a horse/assaulted by a burglar, you would have been glad of them turning up...

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  3. Well, it is nice to know that your friends worry and care about you. Too bad about the screen but they did bring the heavy box in. So I guess there's good and bad with the situation. I'm sure after a while you will get a good laugh out of this.

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