Stuff Happens

“Officer, I can…well, actually, I can’t explain!!”

Let’s recap, shall we?

North Korea has discovered the meaning of the American phrase “The Rockets Red Glare”. Japan and other neigh-b of this little Elvis ‘wanna be’ are not thrilled with the lack of accuracy that NK seems to be working on.

I am always a touch mystified how we got to this point. Yes, indeed, I have heard the argument that China is an ally of said “Mouse That Roared”; but, Holy Missile, Batman! Not having to look too hard for the ever-popular WMD here, kids…(Weapons of Mass Destruction).

Ken Lay passed. In doing so, he has moved quickly to a new level of respect here in the Houston area. He has gone from Ken Lay, the dude who cost a lot of folks their pension and so on, to Kenneth Lay, the poor child who through hard work managed to give tons of monies to various charities and to the Children’s Zoo in town. I wonder on which pivot point the media seems to turn, death forces you to change your “he’s going to prison for a long freaking time” headline to “sainthood?”

Jesse Jackson hates bp. He led a group of 100 protesters to the Texas City Refinery to point this out. He went from ‘there is lack of diversity in Management and ownership of gas stations’ to ‘safety and price gouging.’ When it was pointed out that a large number of stations were in fact owned and operated by minorities, Jesse was quick to point out that these were foreign nationals, i.e. Asian, Indian, and NOT African American or Latino owners…. interesting line in the sand.

So, on a more personal note…

We have just finished some modifications to our backyard. Once the Contractor was ‘complete’, a very loose usage of the word here, we noted several bare spots that could be clearly helped with sod. Our Contractor assured us that he would in fact resolve this soon. ‘Soon’ is right up there with ‘complete.’

We had very good friends in town from the Left Coast. We had consumed a great selection of various forms of alcohol. So, down the street, there was also an abandoned pallet of sod. This sod became more of a point of interest the more we sampled the beverages. Over the course of the evening, it went from ‘a pallet of sod’ to a clear example of American excess and greed. This ‘sod’ needed to be liberated and set free to grow as God intended.

With this as our strategic Goal, we set out to rescue the grass from its ‘suffering.’ Our home had clearly become a sanctuary for grass, not unlike the sanctuary for wild animals rescued from the circus and so on.

It needs to be pointed out here that we reside in a Gated community. There are many homes still being built and because of this, the Developers have hired private security to stop the theft of construction materials at the new home sites.

Albeit, ours was clearly a ‘labor of love and liberation’, we felt that perhaps the Security Guard might misunderstand our real intent and mistake us for common thieves.

We loaded up the SUV with a tarp, several glasses of wine, and off we went. We turned off the lights and went looking for the Security Guard. (Did you know that many vehicles now override the ‘turnoff light deal’ and just come on automatically?) And here, I thought the moon was just really bright.

We found the Security Guard…soundly asleep in her car…a good sign indeed.

We headed down the back streets and located the sod. We quickly sprang into action. With the hatch open, we loaded the grateful grass into the back of the vehicle. Giggling, apparently, is part of the process.

At some point, we decided that ‘freeing’ half the pallet was enough. I then declared, with great authority, that we would drive around the neighborhood so as to not draw suspicion or attention to ourselves. This, of course, in hindsight, may have been where this mission went a bit off track. Nothing looks more “innocent” than 4 Drunks driving around a Gated community in a vehicle with ‘out-of-state’ plates and pieces of grass and dirt on the back bumper at midnight.

I turned down a street that I knew would wrap around and lead us back to our newly named “Grass Sanctuary”. I‘m not really clear on when I first saw the police car, or the officer walking down the driveway toward it. I vaguely recall waving at him.

There was a swathe look of concern on his face as he didn’t return the wave. My guests uttered several suggestions, “Drive like Hell” was quickly dismissed as a good plan.

With the cop car directly behind us, I headed ever so legally back to our home. My wife decided the best way to get rid of the evidence was to drink all of her wine in the glass, just in case, we got stopped. The only thing that saved us on that decision was the height of the liberated sod in the back of the SUV that blocked the officer’s view. The other glass of wine was simply emptied onto the back seat.

Apparently, when required, I drive pretty well for a drunk. I obeyed the stop signs and speed limits. When we came close to our house, I simply hit the garage door opener and turned into our driveway. The cop, who had been following close behind, apparently running my ‘plates’ sped up. He might have had a bad time actually reading the plate numbers for all the dirt and grass stains. As we were halfway in the driveway, he hesitated, as did my heart, and then sped off at high rate of speed. Probably some crooks stealing construction stuff…

I can’t begin to imagine how this might have ended, but as a friend questioned later, “Aren’t you a tad too old to be in court…charged with ‘possession’ of grass?”