Brush with the law

David Snogles
Published: July 8, 2008

It’s been quite a week or two since I last wrote about our move to Orange and in particular the issues I was having getting the phone service connected. Ironically on the very day the column was published (as if by magic) the phone line was connected, so I was naturally elated at the prospect of finally picking up the phone and hearing a dialing tone!

However my celebrations were fairly short-lived when the other side of Verizon (the internet people) sent me a message to advise that the internet connection was going to be delayed for a few more days — and this after weeks of being told that they were just waiting for the phone line to be connected!

Anyhow all’s well that ends well as they say and we now have pretty much all the services we need in our new home — well almost all, we haven’t yet planted any ‘money trees’ which as my mother always told me when I was a child “money doesn’t grow on” — I keep hoping to prove her wrong, but so far nothing has germinated, let alone flourished into a fully fledged orchard! Ah well, back to the day job I guess!

I don’t want to bore you all with my mundane perceptions of life across the pond (and I haven’t even started on wells, sewage systems, trash collections or rather the lack of them, etc.), but I just have to confess to my first brush with the law earlier this week!

Okay it’s not a story of daring bank raids and shoot-outs at the OK Corral, but it was our first encounter with the “boys in blue” as it were, and jolly glad we were to make their acquaintance too, or at least the acquaintance of one Officer Carlton.

Now a lot of people wouldn’t admit this, but we had gone to the local Tractor Supplies Center in Orange to pick up some bags of cedar mulch.

Anita had been waiting by the stack of bags outside the store and I drove the truck around to pick up our purchases. Just as I pulled up, she came to open the rear passenger door of the truck which as always was automatically locked (an annoying feature of the system), and I had already jumped out of the truck. Recognizing that she needed the door unlocked, I quickly turned around, put my hand inside the driver’s door and pressed the release button for the doors, and then slammed my door shut. As soon as that sickening clunk of the door shutting had registered, I realized that I had pressed the lock end of the rocker switch instead of the unlock end!

So there we were, standing outside the truck, all doors locked, keys in the ignition, engine running and all possessions still inside, including the cell phone.

After some frustrating minutes of failing to break into our own truck, Anita went back into the store to seek help and came back to advise me (just as I was looking my most suspect trying to pick the lock with a piece of bent wire!) that the local Constabulary were on their way to assist us. Even in England the image of the friendly village “Bobby” has long since gone, so you can imagine the thoughts running through my head at this piece of news. I could see myself spread-eagled against the truck, being asked for evidence of ID, proof of ownership (which of course I had inside the locked vehicle) and then being manacled and forced into the squad car for questioning down at precinct.

The squad car arrived not five minutes later and parked behind us, seemingly doing nothing more than checking out the license plate over the radio, then calling in our names (Anita had to give our details when requesting help at the store) to check out our heinous list of criminal convictions and seeing if we were illegal immigrants or not — or at least that’s what I imagined they were doing.

Then out from the car stepped the smiling face of Officer Carlton — he greeted us and confirmed the “situation” we had unfortunately found ourselves in before asking, me to sign a disclaimer he said he needed before he could do anything to help us get into the truck.

He explained that signing this waiver meant we couldn’t sue him, the department or the county for any damage that might be caused to the vehicle as he attempted to “break in” for us. He smiled a lot when he saw my reaction to the word “damage” and particularly at my suggestion we give Ford a call first, just in case they were able to help us. Then he proceeded to get some equipment from his squad car and cheerily assured me that he hadn’t damaged a car yet.

For security reasons, I can’t reveal here exactly what Officer Carlton did to gain access to our truck, but suffice to say in less than a minute we were back inside “the beast,” and true to his word, no damage was done — except to a bit of my pride perhaps.

Of course we thanked him profusely, and I resisted the urge to tip him handsomely for his efforts, but we really were pleased to have seen him and for his really speedy assistance. He told me later that this was a pretty common occurrence for him, and he had already been to three similar incidents that week, which had the effect of making me feel a little better about my own ‘misfortune’ at least!

Our thanks go to those who “serve and protect” — we will feel a little less nervous next time we meet one of you, because as Officer Carlton showed, you really are there to help us after all.

Until next week.

David Snogles can be reached at david_hasbury@ yahoo.com