So yours truly wakes up that day around noon. My wife and kids had gotten up about the time this was happening and had seen the police and tow trucks a bit. My wife mentioned it to me, but I was asleep and not stirring.

I've slept through louder situations.


So when I get up, I check my email and see a note from my neighbor telling me about all the 'doings' which is a Georgia phrase for shit that's going on except they don't use the word shit with doings as doings is more in the Victorian style from a pomp and circumstance perspective even though the English is not as precise, correct or enunciated in a fashion that would be acceptable to most people that speak English with out a thick brogue or accent. In other words its slang.

So I catch up on the 'doings' and think to myself well, I wonder what the hell that's all about? Was it something serious? Did some axe murder wonder off into the neighborhood? Were they our burglars of recent days? Was it some poor slob whose car had broken down?

Well we are in the middle of a subdivision and at the end of a dead end street with a circle at the end commonly referred to in greater suburbia as a cul de sac and the point is, it would be pointless for a vehicle in distress to come this far into the subdivision only to park the car by the curb and then go seek help.

The police of course tell no one anything. We don't know if Charlie Manson is free amongst us or possibly Osama Bin Laden or Osama Been Thievin for that matter. We don't know if we're being paranoid due to the recent burglaries or if this is some strange but innocent thing.

The day wears on and around 5:30 PM I hear this loud truck outside. I know the sounds of most of the neighbors vehicles, they all sound quiet.

This was loud and it was going anywhere because we live on a dead end with a circle.


I race upstairs from the basement where I'd been dilligently working on my computer in my home office all afternoon since I woke up. I grabbed my cell phone and my digital camera and ran out onto the deck.

I could see a big red jacked up 4x4 truck not a pick up truck, but a truck - no fooling around type of truck if you know what I mean. Its kind of slowly navigating the circle a couple times and kind of pausing in front of my neighbors house (the one who had called the police earlier.) She's home alone with her daughter so I do the brave thing and walk down into the cul de sac (see above for definition) and say, "Hey can I help you guys?"

There are three big guys in this truck, which means they are all from the South, and generally menas that they are likely to be red necks. I'm not from the south and I'm not a red neck. Plus each of these boys had about 50-100 pounds on me and probably 5-6 inches too.

I'm six foot and these days, I'm down to about 163 lbs. I've lost about 20lbs in Dunkin donuts over the last year and I run a lot. I wasn't going to confront these guys, but needed to find out what was going on here.

So one of the guys informs me that he's the owner of the SUV that had been here earlier. I don't quite get it and I tell him the SUV was towed away. He says yeah I know, I just saw it at the impound lot (kind of like a jail or holding cell for derelict vehicles.)

We gradually work our away around to the conversation where he explains that the SUV was his and that it had been stolen 3-4 days ago and apparently whomever stole it, beat the shit out of it and took everything of value from inside and ultimately left it on my doorstep where it was towed away follwing the spotlight search by the local police.

By then my neighbors had come out to see what was going on too. We all shared notes about the situation and commiserated with the guys whose truck had been stolen and died a slow death.

The thing of it is, we now new that it had been a stolen car and the guys that had abandoned it and walked away and disappeared are some bad dudes.

So we weren't paranoid enough I guess was the bottom line! I've got a new street light on order from the electric company, I cleaned out our garage and now my wife is parking our van in the garage, where she can get in lock the doors, hit the auto door opener buttons and run the hell over anyone that might be lurking outside before she speeds away to teach first graders at the local grade school after she drops our little ones off at day care.

Crazy day!


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