The recent comment post by Anonymous reminded me of the time that I received a telephone call at my office alerting me to the fact that the fire alarm was going off at my house. I immediately got off the phone and called my home telephone number (we had a 'landline' back then) because I knew that my daughter was home alone and I was worried about her safety in what was no doubt a raging fire. She did not answer! I thus ran through and out of the office to my pickup truck. As I was rushing out a good friend of mine, a former Deputy Sheriff, noticed me sprinting by and he followed. As he jumped in the passenger side of the rig, he asked what was going on. I said something about fire, house, daughter, and fired up the rig.
As I accelerated out of the parking lot I was doing 30mph and I pulled onto Ironwood ignoring the stop sign. Traffic there was notoriously congested so I, being in a hurry, immediately passed the first car we ended up behind, and proceeded on. It was then, not yet a minute into the adventure, that I first noticed the flashing lights and siren. Ever ready my friend, the former Deputy Sheriff, gestured through the back window for the police to follow. He didn't realize, and I didn't remember at the moment since it was a recently purchased rig and I was busy weaving out and around cars, that the window was tinted. He didn't realize that what he was doing couldn't be seen by the now trailing squad car behind us because of the tinted windows. Ha! Oh well, ignorance is indeed bliss.
Coming up to a major intersection with a stop light I did slow down to about 40 and turned, right, onto a major arterial filled with traffic. The police were right behind. As we proceeded north at roughly 70 mph, not wanting to be reckless, the squad car kept pace. My friend called the city dispatcher and told him we were headed north on the aterial. Interestingly, my friend told me, the dispatcher responded by saying "We know, you better pull over." Well I sure as hell was not going to stop! Ha!
Well we kept going until we had to turn left. Unfortunately since the fire at the house was no doubt raging by now, a large truck was stopped in the left turn lane waiting to turn left when the light changed. I contemplated weaving around it, but I stopped. At that time a loud voice boomed out, "Get out of the car!" I was pretty sure that the Lord was not speaking to me, and with confirmation from my friend that it was the police yelling through a loudspeaker in their grill (he had prior experience doing that sort of thing), I got out and went to the back of the truck.
When I got there I met a police officer. He asked to see my driver's license. I told him my name (it didn't seem to mean much to him) and proceeded to 'politely' explain to him as I was telling him I was on my way to a fire. Incidentally where the policeman and I were carrying on our conversation was literally right across the street from the fire house. HA! It looked like the typical fire house, nothing was stering, not even a mouse. The alarm had apparently not been received by it yet and no fire truck had left yet.
One of those thoughts, the kind that can, and usually does get me into major difficulties, crossed my mind. I thought I should say, "Do you want to see my concealed weapon permit"? Luckily the good Lord intervened on my behalf and the words were handcuffed, as I would have been had I said it, in my mouth. Finally, the police officer said go ahead! He would follow!
I jumped back in the rig and tore off speeding once more, perhaps even more, through the residential area. In a New York minute I arrived at the house. Oddly, I did not observe flames shooting through the roof...or even smoke. Rushing inside I called for my daughter, again noting no obvious signs of fire. I ran downstairs. He bedroom door was closed so I banged on it and called her name.
She answered and the door opened. I asked if she was alright and she said yes, she was just fine. I asked her if she heard the fire alarm going off. Nope. I asked her why she didn't answer the phone when I called. She replied that she was having an argument with a (boy) friend of hers, and she thought that it was him calling... so, naturally, she didn't answer.
Relieved and completely forgetting about the police convoy that had joined the pursuit, I went back upstairs. When I reached the main floor I ran into my friend. He had somewhat of a frazzled look about him (mind you that was not unusual) and he said "They are really upset!" At that moment I noticed that a fire truck (two actually) from the station we had been next to holding our conversation, had arrived with a full crew of firemen. Luckily no fire. It was a fine gathering now, three police squad cars, two fire trucks, and numerous policemen and firemen milling about. They didn't look like they were discussing baseball.
I started towards the door and as I exited the door to the outside to greet the group, who now looked even more unhappy about the situation, my friend said, in a VERY loud voice, the immortal words, "Plead insanity and I will back you up!"
Well, that broke the policemen up, laughter occurred, and a nice conversation ensued with the police and the firemen. Soooo, there you go. If you are in a tough spot, just plead insanity...
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