There’s Never A Cop Around When You Need One

Or so I’ve always thought. Friday night it turned out there was.

I spent last week in Los Angeles, working at my office (or more accurately, cubicle) out on the west coast. I had a great week pulling off a major presentation in front of a large group of sales execs, a multitude of meetings and discussions moving projects forward, and of course my regular working dinners (reading scripts) at my fave Culver City restaurants. Those would be Sakura House, Beechwood and Thai Dishes (for their amazing Kang Ka Rhee Chicken).

I arrived home to the Nashville airport courtesy of Southwest airlines about 30min later than the planned arrival time. Picked up my car and jetted home for what I hoped would be an hour of relaxation before I had to pick up my oldest daughter at church after midnight (she was at a youth group music jam/root beer party).

As soon as I walked in the door K called to say the party was a bust and she wanted me to pick her up early. So, back in the car with barely time for a bathroom break, and off I went for the one hour round-trip departing my garage at 11PM.

As I drove through downtown Franklin I spotted a couple kids standing in the parking lot behind Starbucks. Or more accurately, spotted a couple teenagers with dropped trousers peeing onto the Starbucks wall/back door in the parking lot. Disgusting. Right in the open with bright parking lot lights bathing them in accusatory shades of flickering yellowish fluorescent luminosity. I thought about how fun it would be to be a policeman right then and surprise them in the act. There’s never a cop around when you need one.

And then, at that moment, as I looked back to the road in front of me, I saw Mike approaching in the opposite lane.

Mike is my sister-in-law’s boyfriend. And, a Franklin city police officer. I rolled down my window in a split second and wildly pointed with my left hand towards the Starbucks parking lot. Mike saw me, recognized me, smiled, and then saw my finger pointing to his right. As I drove by slowly I saw the back of his cruiser as he stopped in the parking lot entrance, and the mean look on his face as he got out of his cruiser and yelled “what the h*** are you boys doing?”

Ha!

I picked up K and told her what happened. We both hoped the scene would still be playing out when we drove by on the way home. And it was… in grand fashion. There were 4 police cars with lights flashing and two teenagers looking mighty sorry. Found out this morning that Mike was forgiving enough not to arrest them for public indecency and urinating in public, but did have both boys call their fathers to have them picked up in the parking lot, with a regiment of policeman watching, and pointing out to the dads the wet spots on the Starbucks wall.

Pretty fun night.

Skunk Hunt

I could see it coming a mile away.

As fall approaches and we resume our traditional bonfires out by the fire-pit, I could foresee a crisp clear night enjoying the roaring fire and each other’s company right up until the moment a skunk sprayed one of us while getting more wood from the wood pile.

A skunk moved into the wood pile this summer and I’ve been plotting on how to take him out. I discovered him one Saturday morning earlier this year while mowing the lawn. I roared up in my mower and we each surprised the other and I can only imagine the look of fear and shock on my face matched that of the skunk.

He tried to squeeze into the wood pile but wasn’t in front of his (or her?) den entrance. He turned to look at me and I though for sure I was about to get very stinky. I didn’t stay to see if he raised his tail- I pulled back on the mower, went full-speed into reverse and got out of there.

So, how to get rid of him…hmm….

I thought about poison, using my BB gun, a kill trap and much more. I couldn’t bear killing the bugger so I looked for an alternative. I found one called “The Skunker.”

It’s a live trap that allows the skunk to slide into a tube seeking the bait (dry cat food was recommended) at the other end, and then WHAM. The trap door at the back end of the tube slides closed and the skunk is trapped. He (or she) can’t turn around, can’t lift their tail to spray, and can’t even see you as you approach and pick up the trap. Perfect.

The only problem was I didn’t know what to do once I caught it. I thought about leaving it in there until it died (only briefly… but that is just too cruel), and a friend suggested a tie a rope to the handle and lower it into our creek for 10 minutes. Couldn’t do it.

I found out Williamson County Animal Control will come and pick up live trapped animals and remove them at no cost. They call when the trap is ready to be picked up. I have no idea what they do with the skunks after they pick them up, and frankly, I don’t want to know.

By the way… the trap is AMAZING. Its brilliant and worked great. I set it out for 3 nights, and the first two nights we caught Raccoons (which we immediately let go). Here is a video from our second night:

Teasing Hair

Last night I was doing some last minute errand running in preparation for a trip next week. This included buying a pair of shoes, some clothes, and of course the pre-big meeting haircut. I decided to go to one of the salons in the mall so I could take care of everything in one place in a couple hours.

I walked into MasterCuts in the Cool Springs Galleria Mall and found found a stylist available to cut my hair right away. As I sat down and she asked me how I wanted it cut, I told her the details of how my hair has been cut for the last, oh- I don’t know, 7 years. That’s the thing about being a man over 35- you freeze your hairstyle about that time and stick with it until the day you die.

My hairstyling request seemed very interesting to her. I had asked for a razor cut. She told me that not many men ask for razor cuts, much less know what they are or that they exist. I like them because they create a smooth look with minimal choppiness that comes from scissors cutting locks of hair at a time.

She asked me questions about where I usually get my hair cut, who does it, and when my last cut was. Which was, I told her, about 4 weeks ago.

“Wow- you’re hair really grows quick!” she said as she ran her fingers through my wild hair that needed tonight’s cut very badly.

A funny thought ran through my head- I had some serious facial stubble going… the early marks of a decent beard since I hadn’t shaved in 4 days or so.

I said “Yeah… it really does. Check out my face- I just shaved this morning.”

“No way! That’s amazing! I’ve never seen someone’s facial hair grow that quick. I've heard about it, but never seen it. “

She went on and on- even told the older lady behind me that was getting a color treatment. I never told her it was a joke.

ChickenGirl

Last week the whole crew went to Franklin on the Fourth (& Fifth). It was the standard outdoor downtown festival- funnel cakes, lemonade, music stages (featuring teenage girls playing electric/acoustic guitars singing other peoples county music hits) and the requisite inflatable games/rides for kids that are way overpriced.

I'm not positive, but I think this was the first year for this particular festival. And if so, my guess is that it will be the last. I've never seen so many downtrodden, sad looking booth vendors selling so much crap no one wanted in my life.

Michelle and 3 of our girls and I hung out while K connected with a couple friends. It promised to be an uneventful afternoon until we met ChickenGirl.

Shortly after we arrived we found a petting zoo and A & R asked to go inside, mainly because they had a cute baby pink pig and A is a PIG NUT. We paid the $3 per kid entrance fee and both A & R were handed a little Dixie cup overflowing with some sort of omni-animal food. You know the kind- looks like a cross between chex mix and rice-a-roni that all animals will eat except for the ones in petting zoos getting the stuff shoved at them by little kids 10 hours a day for years.

A & R made a bee-line for the pigs while Michelle and I enjoyed watching a little girl totally focused on capturing a small white chicken. She ran it round and round the enclosure until she got the poor thing cornered between a llama and donkey. She grabbed for it, and then spend the the next several minutes posing so her mom could take pictures, and then taking the chicken on a tour of the petting zoo.

She introduced her little chicken friend to all the other animals- rabbits, a baby cow, donkey, llama, two pigs, a few goats, some sheep and various others. She put the chicken right into the face of each animal and informed the chicken what each animal was and made sure chicken got a real good and up close look at each animals face.

Then, the fun began. The girl decided to let the chicken take a ride on each of the animals. The pig was first. She sat the chicken on the pig and amazingly the chicken just sat there. The pig stood unfazed as if this happened everyday. Next up- the brown sheep.

Counting Sheep

Last night a Serta mattress commercial aired during America’s Funniest Home Videos. It was the latest edition of the age-old lame take on the stop-animation sheep complaining in one way or the other how people that buy Serta no longer have to count sheep to fall asleep.

The underlying concept of counting sheep flows naturally in one ear and out the other… but my four kids? They just don’t get it.

The concept is engrained in the brain of anyone about 35 years old or older. Countless movies and tv shows made mention of the old trick and we just grew up with it. My kids are dumfounded.

“What does that mean? I don’t understand what the sheep have to do with a mattress?” my kids asked.

I started to explain the concept. “Well, see, some people count, or well, used to count, I mean, some people have a hard time falling asleep so they close their eyes and imagine sheep jumping over a fence and they count them. And after awhile they fall asleep.”

The questions continued… “What?” “Why would people do that?” “Why sheep?” “And why are they jumping over a fence?”

I tried a few more times to try to explain the unexplainable. Then I changed the subject.