Appearances

I have a fondness for the Army base here, as I've already mentioned. It's green, peaceful, and everybody follows the rules. Everyone except me, that is. This morning after dropping Lucy off at school, I parked our little car beside the road next to one of the playgrounds and took Theo for a walk. We meandered through the streets of officer housing, looked at the jungle, petted a friendly cat. As we were walking back to the car, I saw flashing lights through the trees, and soon realized they were coming from the vicinity of my car. Yep- apparently an illegally parked, abandoned Nissan rental car with a pass that was supposed to belong to a green Suburu was enough to draw the attention of three military police units. Whoops!

I was as contrite as can be, and as the friendly cat wandered over to check out the commotion and Theo pointed excitedly at the police trucks, the whole scene started to seem a lot less sinister. The cat (which was one of those floppy ragdoll cats that uncle Dean has) flopped down in the middle of the road, and two of the police units left. I thought the whole thing was over, and was waiting patiently as my warning was being written. Suddenly, a shiny black sedan with government plates whipped around the corner and snapped to a stop behind the police car. A very high ranking Colonel stepped out, oozing trim military authority. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

I was stunned. I mean, yes I had made a Bad Parking Decision, but had EVERYBODY been notified? The police officer looked surprised and stood up very straight. Even the cat lifted his head...at which point The Colonel visibly relaxed, and pointed. "Oh", he said. "I thought you'd killed my cat."