House Arrest

Finding yourself stuck in the house…. with a diagnosis of pneumonia… just days before Christmas…with most of your shopping yet to be done….and the tree not up… has a smell….IT STINKS!  You TRY to follow doctor’s orders and rest, TRY not to think about ‘the list’, TRY to clear your head and relax…. and THAT is usually when something out of the ordinary is going to happen.

I had been assigned to sit and look out the window and was doing rather well at it until I happened to see a spot where perhaps a spider had left part of its lunch in the fall.  This brought on that urge to clean it off!   I whipped out the Windex, stepped outside, and was shining away when I heard a car horn a short distance down the road as it rounded a curve notorious for mishaps or wild animal crossings.  But as the car approached my house, so did the incessant horn honking.   I watched as an old Oldsmobile drove slowly by…. in the MIDDLE of the road.  Traffic was very cautiously trying to get by and all made it…except for an extended cab truck that trailed behind and pulled into the ditch in front of my house.  Curiosity easily gets the best of me.  Being shielded by a HUGE magnolia out front, I peeked around the corner of my house to discover that the car had pulled into my drive.  It is not an uncommon occurrence for vehicles having mechanical issues to use the first drive they come to at the top of a long winding curve and hill.  I went about my business hoping the problem would be resolved.  Sometime later, I peeked out a window to ‘monitor’ only to discover the Olds pulling deeper into my driveway…and parking up next to MY garage door!  That is when I observed that the driver did not appear to be 100 percent in control… and THAT is when panic struck.   

Keep in mind that one of the treatments for pneumonia is a pack of high-powered steroids…. so it was panic to the tenth power! Panic Stage 1: I was dashing through the house stuffing phones in my pocket and looking for any other object that I could use to swing, throw, or shoot…. just in case that person decided to come in for a visit and I found myself without any way to exit the house…with eight doors.  Panic Stage 2:  LOCK those EIGHT doors!  After several minutes of pacing the floor, I tiptoed to the window to peek and see if he was still in the car, or maybe peeking BACK at me.  To my relief, he was backing out and attempting to leave. 

That is when the man in the extended cab truck…still parked in the ditch…. that I had forgotten about…cautiously approached the Olds and was attempting to talk to the driver.  Within a minute a Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office vehicle arrived and blocked my driveway exit.  MCSO tried to communicate with the man…from both sides of the car and soon the second MCSO vehicle arrived.  Apparently, the conversation was not going well because shortly thereafter the third MCSO vehicle and an ambulance arrived.  Even after several attempts to talk to the man and calm him down, it was apparent that MCSO had a job to do…make an arrest.  But the Olds man was not going to make it easy, requiring more than one officer to complete the job.  And, unfortunately, face down on the ground was face down in the mud after a rainy day. 

Now with three MCSO vehicles and an ambulance in front of my house my panic attack finally ceased.  I couldn’t help but want a closer look at what was going on, so I slinked out the back door and peeked around the corner of the house to get a better look and listen, exposing my rural cultural roots to any passersby that may have spotted me.   And wouldn’t you know it…. this is when the phone in my pocket started ringing, cutting short my attempt to ‘find out more’!   But something was going down and I HAD to see want it was.  I found a window with limited view, slightly cracked it, and began watching. 

Now this is where steroid panic changed faces.   I watched as the officers, several of them, struggled with the belligerent old soon-to-be ‘incarceratee’ as he kicked, threatened, and fought their every attempt to get his 350 pound butt off the ground, on to the gurney, and into the ambulance. This is when steroid anger began to rise like the transformation of the Incredible Hulk!  They needed help!  And I was just the one to do it!  Bare handed! All it would have taken was for the Steroid Stealth to go flying across that yard…. bedhead hair standing straight up…. NO makeup…pale from pneumonia…. reeking of perspiration (steroids do that to you, too)…  housecoat flopping…. and with a cough that gave the impression that something was about to errupt!  I would bet money that 350 pound man would have, in one giant leap, hoisted himself on that gurney with no help at all… with hands still cuffed behind his back… begged them to take him away…and prayed to God all the way to the hospital, promising that he would never do this again if given one more chance!

To the man in the extended cab truck that honked his horn…Thank You! You likely saved someone’s life.  To the Emergency Medical Team…accolades to you as well.  Your job requires a lot of expertise and knowledge.  Last, but not least, to the MCSO who has to deal with this kind of garbage every day, and being physically and verbally attacked.   Hats off to You!  We often see videos that have gone viral displaying officers in a not so positive manner.  Yesterday, you spent a lot of time trying to stabilize a situation and protect the well being of a person that wasn’t concerned about his or anyone else’s life.  Your efforts are not taken for granted.  Those are the videos that will likely go unseen.  Now had the Steroid Stealth crossed that yard… some busybody with an iPhone would have appeared from out of nowhere and it would have gone viral today.