Mama's Packing Some Heat!

I'm going to take you all back about 4 years in my world.  I actually wrote this the night that it happened, while it was fresh in my head.  This is the event that led myself and my 3 kids to officially feel like we needed to have thug names.  Without further ado, I will share my story:

Let me start off by saying that I have had a pretty typical Wednesday afternoon.  I picked the kids up after school, rushed home in the rain, fed the kids a snack, got the girls changed for dance...and off we went to Washington.  It was raining heavily, so I was sure to take extra time to get there.  We ended up getting to dance early for once, that is a shocker!  After dance class, the Hubs met us at the dance studio and we loaded up in the truck and went to supper.  Over supper, it was our typical mealtime drama.  Kids were giggling and asking for more ketchup, life was normal, and good.  So I look at the Hubs and ask, "So, you done anything exciting today?"  And he replies, "Nope, not really!"  Then I reply back, "Me neither!"  Little did I know, that we were in for quite a bit of excitement in the very near future.

After supper, I drop the Hubs off at his truck and head on my merry way back to our house.  After a few miles I notice that I don't have hardly even a quarter of a tank of gas, so I decide to pull off at the last gas station heading out of town.  As usual, this particular gas station is full of cars and I have to wait for my turn at a pump.  While I am sitting there idling I decide to give the Hubs a quick call to let him know I have "stopped off" at the gas station so he won't be alarmed if he beats me home and I am not there.  By the time we have a quick chat, it is my turn at the pump.  I pull up, proceed to pay for and pump $70 worth of gas with my credit card while my children sit nicely in their seats.  My girls were coloring in their new coloring books and my son was working on math homework, everyone minding their own business.  This was nothing less than typical, just a Mom at a gas pump and a truck load of children, right?  Since it takes a few minutes to pump so much gas, I gave my mother a call to chit chat and pass the time away.  I finished pumping, closed up my tank, put it in drive, and off we went.  When I got ready to pull out on the highway, there were a few cars heading in my direction, so I waited for them to pass.  I wasn't in a great hurry, supper was already eaten, and homework was almost done...so it was going to be an easy night once we got home.  Not to mention that it was of course, as all you NC people know, RAINING!!!  So, I pull onto the highway, chatting away with my mother.  I get about 50 yards from the gas station, and I notice all of a sudden a nice set of blue lights in my rear view mirror.  Hmmmmmph, I thought, and I say to my mother, "I gotta go!" and hang the phone up.  I instinctively looked down at my speedometer and was only going about 35 mph, and then looked back up at the mirror.  WOW!!!  Much to my surprise, this time, there were even more blue lights.  For an instant, I thought there must be a bad wreck up ahead or something, let me get out of their way.  So, I pull into the nearest business parking lot and just about as my truck comes to a rolling stop....I AM SURROUNDED!!!!  Literally surrounded, by at least 10 police cars.  Some marked, some unmarked, but all flashing blue lights and sirens.  Talk about scary, good Lord, that is putting it lightly.  I was so confused, I was NOT speeding, I DID pay for the gas, what in the world was going on.  I racked my mind from the events that had occurred all day and I just couldn't figure out anything that I had done to constitute all of this police attention.

It took about 30 seconds and after being completely surrounded by Highway Patrol, local Police, the County Sheriff Dept., and unmarked cars that I realized either this was a really UNFUNNY joke, or something was badly going wrong.  At this point, my children are scared to the point of crying in the back seat.  Perhaps it was the police officer screaming at me from his loud speaker on his car to "put your hands out of the car where I can see them" or "don't get out of the car" or "roll all your windows down so we can see you" that was scaring them.  As I glance to the back of my truck to look at my children I notice that some police officers are crouched down behind their own car doors while others are standing ready with their hands on their weapons to pull them out of their holsters.  At this point, I am getting highly frightened myself, and scared to do anything.  I rolled my windows down and kept telling them that "there are children in here!"  I bet I screamed it at least 10 times.  I didn't know what was going on, but apparently I had really done something bad.  After several minutes of the "stand off" in the parking lot with me in my surburban with the pretty little pink Snoopy decal on the back glass, I finally could understand the police officer's demands and what he was saying.  You see, when someone is screaming at you through a loud speaker, and you are having to listen to him while listening to your 3 children scream and cry in horror, not to mention, the rain splattering on my windshield...it is kind of hard to actually "listen!"  Anyway, I complied and rolled all 4 windows down and then proceeded to stick my hands out of the window, as did my 8 year old son, as he was asked to do.  Sure, that isn't traumatic at all....to be 8 and be screamed at by authorities.  My 6 year old twins in the very back seat put their hands up to the windows as we all sat in the car surrounded by the bright blue flashing police cars.  Scary?  Yeah, you betcha!  The next words I heard were, "Mam, open your door and exit the truck slowly with your hands up!"  Seriously?  I mean, really?  I then did as I was asked to do and by this point I thought I had must have been in some kind of bad dream.  It was all so surreal!

Once out of the vehicle, and the officer could tell I wasn't armed, the Lt. approached me.  He wanted to know who I was, and what I was doing.  I told him my name, and then said, "Well, I was going home!"  I asked him what in the world had I done.  He then began a long list of "I am sorry's" as he realizes that they have chased and captured the wrong person.  Seriously?  The officer said that the clerk at the gas station called 911 and reported a "white vehicle with people in it waving around uzis."  Then he goes on to say, "as we approached the gas station, we saw YOUR white vehicle pulling out, and we thought you were the perps."  So, the chase was on, apparently!!!  Needless to say, I was scared...which is not easily done, by the way!  Not only that, but my children are now completely scared of police!  The only thing that could have made this situation worse would have been if I had of been cuffed and put in the back of the car for questioning.  Thank goodness it didn't get THAT far.

After many apologies and and "explanation" to my children that I asked the officer to give them on "how neither I, nor them had done nothing wrong" we were excused and allowed to make our way back home.  I drove all the rest of the way home reliving all of the moments in my head and I realized that I was even more scared than I thought.  At the time, I was going on pure adrenaline and my only concern was that somebody didn't do anything stupid to, or in front of my children.  I was most certainly acting like a mother first and I didn't want them to see anything happen to me and I tried not to let them know I was as scared as I really was.  We finally made it home, even though it was a little later than expected.  I am pretty sure I have just about officially "done it all" now.  And, I am pretty sure I have a great start to that book I have been meaning to write.  So, tonight, I pray that my children and I will sleep well and NOT have dreams of blue flashing lights, or holding my hands up.  Whew, what an evening!!! 

Much love to you all:
-the Laundry Fairy (a.k.a. K-Dawg...my gun toting, thug name)