FOREWARD: my mothers monitor is very old and I can't see what I"m typing. Also, I hate to edit. Please don't punish me.
I'm so annoyed. I'm the kind of annoyed that, later in my life, I might discover is not annoyance at all, but either anger, or fear, or sadness, but the part of me that likes to keep things managable prefers the term annoyed. I'm annoyed.
I had a perfect day, really. Mom and I took the 2 hour drive over to my sisters house in the middle of farm land, whiere my tiniest nephew 'read' (see: recited) me The Burnstein Bears and The Spooky Old Tree. My sister and I rolled our eyes at the same things, and my oldest nephew, who currently has a broken arm, explained the Junior High football game to me.
|Nephew: "See how that guy fell because the guy hit him from the back? That's not allowed."
Sonya: "For safety?"
Nephew: "Um, maybe, but mostly you really don't want to push a guy more in the direction he's already going. Sometimes your own guys knock you down."
Sonya: "So this is actually a game that's all about cutting your losses."
He scratches his forehead with his cast (|#4 since the beginning of this summer, he won't let anyone sign it until Bonnie Somebody signs it. crush.) "Yeah, pretty much."
They lose the game, but my first-grader nephew walks me back to the car.
S: "Are you my escort?"
First-grade Nephew: "Whats escort?"
|S: "You keep me safe."
First-grade Nephew: "Guess What? I know karate."
Mom and I took I-90 home after dinner, listened to some soft rock, talked about her trip to Hawaii, 20years ago.
Here comes the part that ruins it.
So i"m driving 20 MPH into the neighborhood I grew up in. We pass a little civic with a headlight out, and as soon as it's beyond us, it flips a U-ey and follows us. Not like 1 car pace behind following, but like one burrito of distance between bumpers. My neighborhood is out of city limits, so there are no streetlights. and people go to bed early. I slow to 15MPH on the little main road. They keep pace directly behind. I start to think that it's got to be someone mom knows, so I don't really mention it to her until we get to the house. I pull into the drive and leave the car running, lock the doors. The car that was following us idles across the street and turns their lights off.
S: "Mom. Stay in the car. Do you see that car there? Do you know who that is? They've been following us."
M: "Turn the lights off."
|I turn the lights off and wait for them to make their move. Nothing.
S: We're not going inside. Seatbelt fastened?"
I pull the station wagon out of the drive and into the culdesac. The car follows directly behind us. Halfway back down the main stree they pull off into the side street. (by the house where NIc Mazali lived in 3rd grade. I had a crush on nic.). I continued up the street to the big 1/8 mile roundabout. Coming back down the main street i noticed them idlling again where they had pulled off. I pulled up next to them to see if I could see who was inside. (we're in IDAHO here, remember.) they gunned the engine and pulled away.
I had no idea the station wagon had that much get up and go. We followed them to a stop sign where they had to at least pause. I made their license plate number and make into a little song and pulled away.
S: "I'm calling 911"
M: "Oh, they'll be so annoyed, wont they?"
S: "Mom, this is why you pay your taxes. So that when someone follows a lady who traditionally lives by herself home, she can call the police."
M: "I guess."
So I called 911, and explained the situation, the make, the color, the plates. "And they should be fairly easy to stop, the front right headlight is out."
911 op: "Do you want us to send a car around?"
S: "A swing-by to make sure things look normal would be nice if someones in the area later."
911: "Will do."
I hung up the phone and hugged my mom.
Mom: "I supose it was just kids fooling around."
Sonya: "THe world isnt much for that kind of fooling around anymore, mom."
Do you remember that scene in the Pearl where Chris Dietz plays the uptight office manager who has to cover phones while people are on their break and then somebody sends the company a bomb and Chris is answering phones and delivering esoteric aphorisms at the same time he's disarming the bomb with, like one of those credit-card letter openers, a staple remover, some paper clips and a few rubber bands? And the receptionist, (who was either Alicia or Lori— I can't remember because I'd never met either of them before so I didn't have associations that helped me tell them apart) who had been totally annoyed by how anal Chris's character was before is watching him do all this stuff with this, like, totally amazed expression on her face like she can't believe she failed to notice what a superhero he is? And I guess in the play as it was originally written, the bomb was supposed to go off anyway, but the night I saw Pearl there was a snafu with the sound equipment so there was no ka-boom sound, so the clear implication was that Chris had actually succeeded in disarming this thing with the random crap that just happened to be sitting on the reception desk.
To me, this was perfect. And when I found out about the sound snafu I thought the other ending, the ending that was supposed to have happened, was stupid.
The perfect ending was perfect because that play needed a superhero.
But the point of the story was this: that kind of superhero Chris was in the play?
That's the kind of superhero you are sometimes.
If you see those kids again, tell them I *will* drive to Idaho and kick thier asses if they keep it up.
And I'll bring a hamburger and 6 pack of Hires.
Posted by: UnderwearNinja at September 19, 2003 01:52 PMAvast there, matey! Here be something that'll shiver yer timbers -- in a good way, arr!
Today be "National Talk Like A Pirate Day!"
I swear on Davey Jones' locker. Look ye here:
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/
So, get out there and give those landlubbin' sons-of-a-narwhal a good tongue-lashing! Make 'em walk a plank! Keel-haul 'em! Grr! That'll put a spring in yer step quicker than ye can say, "yo-ho-ho, and a bottle o' rum!"
Yar!
Posted by: THE COMTE at September 19, 2003 02:44 PMDamnit.. I've got a headlight out again!!
Posted by: sammus at September 19, 2003 04:12 PMs., sometimes i think you know how to do everything. i think you're great.
Posted by: louella at September 20, 2003 11:11 AMIf you think someone is following you, never go home. Go someplace like a police station or firehall, even a VFW or Legion will work in a pinch. At the very least, drive around the block to make sure you're right about it.
Posted by: Potato at September 22, 2003 11:16 AMObviously.
However, the situation didn't strike me as a dangerous one until we were already home. That's why I told mom not to get out of the car. We could have just pulled into any driveway (there are no public places within several miles of my parents home.), so I figured it's just as good to pull into a place where you know that people know you and you can most certainly get to a phone, than into the yard of a stranger who doesn't care if you live or die.
but yes, go somewhere other than home when people threaten your mother.
Posted by: sonya at September 22, 2003 11:46 AM