Yesterday turned out to be rather interesting. I called the Rome police department to get information about how to go about filing a report for my stolen camera bag. I was excepting to go down to the station and talk to someone at a desk, you know, like real cops on TV. Well, I spoke to a lady at the RCPD and she told me I would have to drive into the city limits of Rome and call 911. Now, for some crazy reason I always thought you only called 911 for a true emergency, like getting shot or a wreak or reporting a murder like some crazy lady that was pushed over the edge of sanity when her camera bag was stolen, finally snapping and beating the first person to walk by her with a wooden duck, kind of avocado green color with a lovely yellow bow tie....
My friend Rachel, who has been very supportive in this, my hour of need (thanks ray-ray) agreed to ride to Rome with me as a sort of moral support. On a four lane highway in Trion, Georgia, just north of Rome, we roll up behind a large truck, a sort of mid-sized tractor/trailer. Rachel and I were talking, and like passengers do, she was gazing out of the windows, taking in the sites around us. The truck in front of us decided to merge over into the slow lane. ( for those who don't know, it's the Right lane, try and drive in it more often!) Being in the drivers seat I saw the view in front of the merging truck long before Rachel did, the view was a wreaker truck towing a dumptruck. The dumptruck was turned to face in the backward position, showing it's headlights to the cars behind him. My friend Rachel(who is a crazy Looney, but we love her anyway) was looking in another direction out of her passenger side window while the truck that was in front of us was merging over into the other lane. She apparently turned her head back to see the road and the right wrong time, she lets out the saddest scream I've ever heard, she does this because she thinks that the dumbtruck is driving towards us and that the truck had merged to miss it, therefore making us a head on target. The scream, wasn't a scream you'd expect from a woman who thinks she's about to be killed by a 3 ton dumptruck, it was more a scream you'd expect from a person who's just been given wooden spoons with a $0.99 cent price tag as a graduation gift. What would that sound like you ask? Well you know good and well in your head that you've made that scream over something before, it may not have been wooden spoons, but you have horrors in your past, just admit it! The scream I'm talking about has a sort of low pitched beginning, a small raise somewhere in the middle, followed by a few seconds of vocal pity. If Hollywood ever remakes the move "Speed" and includes another bomb on a bus plot, Rachel is not the person to hire as an extra on the bus! A pitiful display, no doubt, but funny as all get out!!!! I laughed a good 3 miles, then would rethink it in my head and laugh again. I, unlike her, had the pleasure of being lucky enough to be looking at her face at the very moment she attempted to be terrified. It was a priceless moment, something not even I can put in words. For those of you who know Rachel, I'm sure you have a good visual... feel free to pause a moment and laugh your butt off.
Okay, moving on.... I decided to go back to the scene of the crime, mainly to check to see if someone grew a brain and returned my bag to the Church office, I had no luck though. :o(
So, I went out to the car and made the 911 call, which by the way, felt very odd to be calling 911. It's the fear factor your parents drill in you, you know, when your a kid and for some reason pushing random numbers into the phone just seemed like such fun. ( Speaking of which, I wonder how that kid's doing in Thailand I spoke to once, such a nice person... I think, I mean I don't know what he said, but it sounded heartfelt.) Anyway, every kid wants to call 911, so you call it, then your mom walks in and out of fear you drop the phone and pretend to have been picking your nose or something. Then, 15 minutes later you've got S.W.A.T. busting out your windows because there's been a 911 rep on the line all that time, overheard you playing cowboys and Indians with your imaginary friend and though your house had been invaded by the mafia.
The officer I spoke to took my information down on a piece of notebook paper, and I have got to tell you, I figured she'd use it later as a wrapper for your used gum. I had printed out the IP Address information from my website hit but when I showed it to her she didn't seem nearly as excited about it as I did. Just to give you a visual of how this encounter went, the 911 call took 8 mins, my time giving the officer my information and also including her 3 personal cell phone calls took maybe 5 mins.
During the events of the day, I had completely forgotten I had made a Portrait session appointment for 2:30 in LaFayette, 45 mins north of Rome. My 911 call happened at 2:38, luckily they were really cool about it. I was a tad embarrassed, as you can imagine, especially since it didn't dawn on my until she called me on my cell phone. After the police took my report I hauled butt back to LaFayette only to find them sitting in the blazing hot sun waiting on me. Yet another cherry on top on my shitty sundae. The portrait session went pretty good though, I got some cute stuff judging by my quick look through and I'm sure you'll see more of these later on. On the image you see here, Chase, who is nearly 2, was popping bubbles, which was the only thing we could come up with to make this kid smile, and it still took amazing effort.
Tipping hat to Karma...
