Cuff Me, Officer

Ever had a police escort through a church?


I have.  


Let me explain.


Just before we moved to Los Alamos and started going to our church, they added a large addition to the building; an enormous fellowship hall upstairs and some unused space downstairs.  Unused until recently, that is. After months of negotiating, etc., the county is opening a Teen Center in that unused downstairs space.  The opening, in fact, is tomorrow!


So needless to say, there's been a lot of work going on downstairs in preparation of this opening.  I was in the church office upstairs this evening and noticed a bundle of mail that had come in for the Teen Center people.  Trying to be helpful, I thought I'd take it downstairs.  Surely, in the craziness of their opening tomorrow, no one would think to come up to check the mail.


I went downstairs and opened the interior door to the teen center and heard the loudest noise I'd heard in quite some time.


The security alarm.


Great.  


And there was, surprisingly, no one there at all.  No one to turn the alarm off.


I don't know a lot about security systems but I do know that if they go off and no one is there to disengage them immediately, the cops show up.  I thought about just staying and waiting for them with my arms behind my back in the "go ahead, officer, cuff me" position.  Instead, I hauled butt upstairs to see if our priest, who was there preparing for a contemporary worship service, knew anything about the security system.


Of course he didn't and as we were in the process of calling folks that might be able to help, the cops did, in fact, show up to the upstairs fellowship hall where we were.  

I explained that I was, in fact, the guilty party, and they asked me to guide them down to the Teen Center to check it out.  So we walked the length of the hall, right past the worship band who was completely unaware but intrigued by what was happening.  


By the time we got downstairs, the Teen Center coordinator had showed up and confirmed that he knew me and that I was not a burglar.  The cops then took off and the coordinator taught me how to disengage the security system.  


Before I departed, I handed him his pile of mail.  As I handed it over, I noticed that one of the envelopes was a bill.  From the security system company.


Oh the irony.


Keep It Real!

Worst/Best Weekend Ever

Awful.  I felt just awful.


You know those scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies where the pirates glide down the sails using their swords?  It felt like they were doing that in the back of my throat.


I couldn't swallow a dang thing.  Not even water.  Not even my own saliva.  All I wanted was one of those spit sucker things from the dentist.  That, and the ability to sleep through it all.


I was hoping and praying that it was just the worst sore throat ever but on Saturday night when the tell-tale white patches showed up on my tonsils and my fever was 101.3, I knew it had to be strep.  Dang kids at work.  I know just which one I got it from too.

Note to self: next time said child is in time out at work, make it a few extra minutes longer than needed.

Sunday morning I was set to go to Urgent Care to get some drugs.  A doctor I knew found out I was ill and instead had me come over.  She was kind enough to examine me and write me a couple of prescriptions.  God bless her.  She saved me from the lines at Urgent Care and having to hang out with other sick people, not to mention that $50 co-pay.  God bless her!


With my painkiller and my antibiotics, I was ready to go for the Super Bowl.  I was missing out on a Super Bowl party that was supposed to have been hosted at my house but instead was relocated to a friend's house a few blocks away.  No chips and chili for me.  Just me and the TV.


What a great game!  Scoring those first two touchdowns right from the start was AMAZING.  The half time show was a total trainwreck.  Let me repeat...TOTAL TRAINWRECK.  But it was followed up by the most intense 4th quarter I've ever seen.  The Steelers started making a comeback that didn't go quite as far as they needed it to, but admittedly far enough to make the Packer fans a little nervous.


It felt SO good to win.  If you put yourself out there as a Packer fan, you take a good amount of crap for it.  For the most part, I have resisted returning the sarcastic remarks to the Steeler fans that teased me for the last two weeks.


I woke up today and had to remind myself that it wasn't a dream.  The Packers really did win the Super Bowl.  It's a great day to be from Wisconsin.  It might even be worth having strep for the weekend.

Welcome home, Lombardi Trophy!

Keep It Real!