Just About Perfect

I’ve had a hard time thinking of topics for the blog, so I am making the bold decision to share this story. I’ve only told this to two other people because it’s kind of personal, so I ran it by my wife first and she gave me her blessing to post it. But I do apologize in advance to my in-laws.

One of the nice things about living in the High Desert of Southern California was that, despite the sometimes unbearable heat during the day, the nights would usually cool off and actually be quite pleasant.  Once the sun went down, you could open your windows and turn off the A/C, letting the cool desert breeze blow through the house.

The downside to this was that it meant the sounds of the neighborhood would sometimes flood in and invade our living space.

The kids across the street riding their miniature dirt bikes incessantly.

The neighbor next door to them sitting in his front yard, drinking beer with his friends, listening to music blaring from his open car (how did his battery never go dead?).

And, most often, our crazy next door neighbor yelling at her kids.

We suspected she may have been a highly functioning meth-head, but that was never confirmed.  She was always out in her yard, planting trees and bushes, putting decorative stones around the yard, but she did all that while yelling at her kids constantly.  I quickly gave her the totally clever and original nickname ‘Crazybitch,’ and never bothered to think up anything better, so that’s how we referred to her.

Cut to a hot, sunny Labor Day weekend.  It was Sunday; my wife and I both had the next day off.  We spent the day lounging around lazily under the air conditioning, as it was too hot out to do much outside.  Once the sun went down and the oppressive heat let up, we opened all the windows and let the fresh air in.

One thing led to another as the night progressed, as things tend to do, and we found ourselves in the bedroom, um…frolicking.  At one point in the middle of our frolicking, I heard Crazybitch screaming at her kids.  I instantly blocked it out, because the last thing I needed at that moment was a mental image of that horrific beast (did I mention how ugly she was?).

After we were done frollicking, we walked out on our back porch (which was private), naked as the day we were born, to catch our breath and let our dog do his business.

“Did you hear Crazybitch yelling at her kids?”  I asked.

My wife laughed.  “Yeah, what’s wrong with her?”

“Beats me.  She needs medication or something.”

We heard a car door slam, and it sounded close.  Like it could’ve been in our driveway.

“Is somebody here?”  my wife asked.

“Couldn’t be,”  I said.  “It’s after eleven.”  I heard footsteps to my left and looked over to see an extremely bright light shining through our double gate.  I thought I heard the faint sound of a radio or a walkie talkie.  “Is it…the cops?”

My wife let the dog in and bolted down the hall to the bedroom.  I went inside too, but for reasons still unknown to me I veered right, into the kitchen.

Then, a knock at the door.

“Who is it?”  I called from the kitchen.

“San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, sir.”

“Just a minute, please!”  I said.  I kept thinking my wife was going to come to the door, but she was nowhere to be found.  I finally sprinted from the kitchen, down the hall and into the bedroom.

I should mention at this point that not only were our windows open, but at the time we had the world’s worst vertical blinds in our living room window.  They were there when we moved in, and they were so old and brittle that over time they started breaking off, making the window look like a toothless hillbilly’s grin.  Even with the blinds closed there were large gaps, making it easy to see inside.

“Why didn’t you get the door?”  I asked, hurriedly putting on my clothes.

“I’m not getting it,”  my wife said defiantly.  “Who is it?”

“It’s the cops!”  I got some shorts and a shirt on and went to the door.

I saw a male deputy standing at the door, and a female deputy standing back a couple of steps, on our sidewalk.  The grin she was trying to hide told me instantly that she had just seen my hairy, white ass running down the hall (I can’t remember if I covered the twig and berries or not) through the gap in our blinds.

“Good evening, sir, I’m Deputy So-and-so, San Bernardino County Sheriff.”

“Uh, hi.  Is there a problem?”

“Well, sir, we were called out tonight because we got reports of a woman screaming.  Is everything OK?”

“Um, yeah,”  I said, searching for the right words.  “Everything is…”

The officer grinned.  “Everything’s just about perfect?”

“Pretty much,”  I chuckled.

“All right, sir, sorry to bother you.  You have a good night.”  The deputies quickly got back in their squad car and drove off.  I closed the front door and began laughing so hard I could hardly breathe.  My wife came down the hall wanting to know what was so funny.

“Crazybitch called the cops on us!  She wasn’t screaming at her kids, she was screaming at us!”  I had tears streaming down my face.  It’s the closest I’ve ever come to laughing so hard that I pissed myself.

I called the police station the next day to see if there would be any kind of record of the deputies’ trip out.  The woman on the other end of the phone told me if no citations were issued or no one went to jail, there is generally little to no paperwork.

I was disappointed to hear that.  I was hoping the officer had to file something about the results of the call, and  had already planned on framing it and putting it on my wall.

Instead, I’m left with a great story to tell, and any time someone uses the phrase ‘just about perfect,’ I start grinning like the cat who ate the canary.