Stop thief!

Friday night, after losing a generous amount of money to friends who came over for poker night at our place, we were cleaning up deep dish pizza crumbs when we heard a car alarm go off in the street below. Though I would normally have rolled my eyes and ignored it, I happened to be standing near the window and saw that there was a shady-looking fellow hovering nervously near the car. It looked a little suspicious.

"I think that guy's breaking into that car," I said, mesmerized, standing there watching as The Clementina Show headed into CSI territory.

Eric came dashing over to the window just as the guy reached into the car and grabbed two bags through the window he had just broken.

We then immediately called the police, of course.

I wasn't wearing my glasses so Eric fed me details of the dude's appearance and watched what direction he was going so we could tell the nice woman at 9-1-1 where the police might catch up with the perp.*

We gave her the basics: he was tall-ish, wearing dark pants, a hooded sweatshirt and a hat and carrying a white shopping bag and a briefcase taken out of the car. The she got kind of demanding: What hand was he carrying the bag in? Um, one in each maybe? What kind of shoes was he wearing? Uh, hmmm. What color was his parachute? Oh, wait. Sorry. Job search on the brain.

She said they might need us to come down to talk to the cops; they would call us if so. Cops were on the scene just a few minutes later, and the people whose car it was came out to talk to them which meant that we probably didn't have to go down. But we really wanted to help, so Eric and I hung out of our 4th story window watching and listening, looking for a chance to be helpful.

We heard the cops ask who had called the police and Eric eagerly shouted out the window:

"We did! Hey! Up here in the window! We called!"

Four heads turned, registered our presence, gave a small wave, and then ignored us.


*I hope this is not the last time I get to use the word "perp" in the blog, but I hope that it is always removed from direct personal experience.