Oh You Are Just Not Going To Believe This!

This morning, I'm sitting at my computer, trying to get the last of my "business" finished so I can go upstairs and sew.  My husband comes in the house shouting for me - all beside himself.  I'm not kidding, for a moment there it looked like there were two of them.  He comes storming into my office and I'm looking at him like he's got two heads because he's been in a bit of a mood this morning.
He says "I" emphasis on the I  "have been VI-lated!"  That's the way we say it around here, because it's funny most of the time.  We've been VI-lated when we have been violated.

Then he says . . . "and they VI-lated you too!"  I'm sitting there at my computer not feeling very violated at all.  I decided to take a different approach, because, as I said, he's been in a bit of a mood this morning.  So, instead of saying "What are you freaking talking about???"  I said "Oh, honey, I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do? Hmmmm?"  I mean, my words are just dripping with solicitation.  Thought that would soothe the savage beast.

Then he said "They" the mysterious THEY again "broke into the shed and stole the rototiller."

WHAT!!!????  He was right, I really had been VI-lated.

So, even though it would do absolutely no good, I dutifully called the non-emergency number for the sheriff's office.  I told them that I needed to report a robbery.  The girl on the phone started asking me questions about guns and had I been beaten and I was like, what-on-earth-are-you-talking-about?????  Finally I said, "They" broke into the shed and stole the rototiller.  Oh, she says.  That's breaking and entering, not robbery.

Oh, for heaven's sake!

So, she puts me through to dispatch where I say I need to report a B&E (I sounded like I should  be an extra on Law and Order, really, I did) and they said they'd send someone out.

A while later - and that was OK, because this really was NOT an emergency, although my husband HAD been VI-lated, the deputy came.  I showed him the shed door, I showed him where we'd last seen the rototiller (yesterday afternoon by the way, because we cut the grass in advance of the approaching rainout we're supposed to get from the remnants of tropical storm Issac) and he was taking pictures and having me fill out paperwork.

Then, my husband and son come running up to the deputy and were talking all gobbledygook and excitement and pointing and while I thought that his being Vi-lated had completely melted my husband's brains, the deputy actually made sense of what they were saying, jumped in his cruiser and sped off with lights flashing.  I've still got his pen.

What had happened was that while I was doing paperwork, a pickup truck drove by on the road.  The driver slowed down excessively while he and his passenger were looking intently at us and the deputy.  While all that was going on (that's what my husband saw) my son noticed that perched proudly in the back of the pick up was a rototiller that he swore looked like ours!  I was like, oh, come ON, you've got to be kidding me?  You recognized the mud and rust spots?  Oh, My, God!

I thought, that deputy is going to come back and shoot me just to put me out of my misery living with my husband and son.

So, in disgust, I went back inside and sat back down to my computer to resume my "business" so I could finally go sew.  And no sooner had I logged back in, the phone rang.  It was dispatch.  The deputy wanted to know if we could come to his location and identify the rototiller.

Really?

So, I grabbed my husband and we went.  The deputy had caught up with them about a mile up the road and he had my husband look at the rototiller in the back of the pickup.  Now, I gotta tell you, my husband does not lie.  EVER.  Not even a white lie.  He even gets mad at me about what he calls "lies of omission".  He's a stickler.  And I knew when he looked at that rototiller that it was ours.  It was all over his face.  But, he continued to look at it because - and I knew this before he confirmed it later - he didn't want to be wrong.  He didn't want to accuse these young men unless he was absolutely, 100% sure.  The problem - or I guess I should say their problem - was that he'd done a rube-goldberg sort of repair on the thing a few years ago and while we didn't have the serial number and we could say that there were some tines broken, but didn't know exactly how many, etc. etc., my husband did recognize his repair.  Even the deputy asked him if he was absolutely sure.  And my husband looked him in the eye and said he was absolutely sure.

And when my husband says that, it is absolutely the truth because he's one of those old fashioned guys whose word really means something.

So, these guys have a whole bunch of stuff in the back of the pick up truck along with the rototiller.  And inside the truck, they have this huge collection of knives - including a sword!  The deputy called for backup and one guy was put in the back of each cruiser.  One deputy talked to one guy and the other deputy talked to the other guy.  Ended up, they both told the same story - that they'd been to a flea market and bought the rototiller.  Oh, I forgot to mention that the guys don't have insurance on their vehicle and that's illegal in this state.  We don't have any uninsured motorists fee that you can pay, you HAVE to have insurance.  And they weren't real friendly with the deputy.

In the end this is what they did -  The deputy told us we could go home and get some tools, the ones my husband said he needed to sort of dismantle the rototiller so we could get it inside my hatchback and take it home.  So we did that, and brought back my son to help.  Husband and son did what they needed to do and got it into the back of my car.  Then the deputies told us that they were going to follow the two suspects back to the flea market and have them point out the guy they'd bought the rototiller from.  Then, they'd sort it out whether or not these two were telling the truth or if they were really the "perps".  That's why they didn't just have the guys drive back to our house with the thing in their truck, because they could really be the bad guys.  Doesn't matter.  I told the deputy to tell them that if they came back to my house, they should not mistake me for a shrinking violet - I would see to it that they were permanently out of action if they came into my house while I was there.  This state has a no-retreat law.

The two guys will either lead them to the "big fish" who really stole the rototiller, or they will be arrested for receipt of stolen property.  

So, I still have the paperwork and the deputy's pen.  I need to finish the paperwork up and then will drop them off for him at the offices.  Neither of the deputies thought the two were telling the truth.   Neither did I.  One of the guys said to my husband that he was "so embarrassed".  But, neither of them ever said they were sorry.  Now, if you'd bought stolen property and got caught with it and had the "victims" right there in front of you, wouldn't YOU say you were sorry?  I would.  To me that shows that you really didn't know it was stolen and you really are sorry.   In fact, earlier, the deputy had told me that there had been a rash of these sort of break ins in both sheds and houses.  Things were being stolen and folks might find them in pawn shops from here to Baltimore.  Know what was on the side of the truck?  A Baltimore Ravens sticker.  Yep.  Most folks out here are either Redskins or Steelers fans.  Oh, the other thing they're doing with stuff is taking it to be scrapped.  Scrap metal is paying high dollar these days.

It's been quite a day.  My poor husband has to go outside in this brutal humidity though and repair the shed door as best he can so we can lock it back up.  Meanwhile, I was going to go up and work on my Veterans stocking project, but I need to do something relaxing.  I'm going to do some experimental quilting instead.  Quite a coincidence though, huh?  The rototiller goes driving by and my son recognizes it from mud and rust marks?  While the sheriff is standing in our driveway?  I guess we weren't driving faster than our Guardian Angels could fly this time. 

I don't know if we'll hear the rest of the story on this, but I do hope so.  It's like when your satellite TV goes bonkers and you lose the last ten minutes of the mystery drama you were watching.  Hope you enjoyed!