Hello Officer...

7:30 am is not a time of day that I am usually ready to greet guests on my doorstep. At 7:30 am, I'm generally clad in sweats in the middle of my living room floor, pumping caffeine down my throat as Ella pumps down her morning bottle. But on this morning, I had to go into the office, so you can at least be assured that I was bathed and dressed when....the cop knocked on my door.

I know, like all women know, that rapist knock on your door early in the morning. So when I heard the knock, I was certain that some man was there to take what was not his. But I opened the door anyway. (Rest assured, I had a "plan" to avoid my would be attacker!) Lo and behold, my suspected front porch rapist was a COP!

He immediately asked if it was the home of "Don Rock". Since I assumed that the cop was not coming to rape Pat, I immediately that one of two other things were now true. Either my husband was dead or he'd commited a heinous crime. And like all of you who know Pat well, I immediately assumed ..."CRIME"! And I was right...

"Ma'm, we need to speak to your husband about not paying for his purchase at the British Petroleum this morning."

Inside my head: "British Petroleum? Bristish Petroleum? He's stealing from an overseas company? OHHHH --- BP!!! The BP station! He didn't pay for his GAS!"

Yes, Pat had forgotten to pay for his fuel that morning and now he was on the lamb.
It took us a bit to track Pat down, and the police officer was all but ready to file a report. All the while, my daughter was cracking up. She was laughing, waving at the officer, and flashing him her biggest smile. She must already have learned that she and I have to work together to keep her dad out of trouble. It must have worked because after getting Pat on the phone and insuring that he wasn't already to the Missouri border because of the $30 worth of gas he had stolen, the officer calmed down and agreed to let me go pay for the gas.

The drama that insued when the guy at the station would only accept cash is a much less interesting story, but actually much more irritating.

In the end, Pat is not behind bars. He's avoided the law yet again, and added one more member of the Brownsburg Police to his list of "Off Duty Cops to avoid at church". You'd be surprised at how long it is! Okay, probably not surprised at all!