CASE FILES OF A TRUE (WANNA BE) DETECTIVE

I've always thought that I would make a good detective.  I'm quick to notice things out of the ordinary, or to pick up on body language.  Perhaps being the mother to five teenagers (13-19 at one point) helped hone those skills.

Like the time for instance when we had rented a cabin for a week at a fishing lodge owned by some friends of ours.  There were quite a few young people there that week and our kids knew most of them so they had a great time hanging out swimming, riding tubes down the rapids, and playing volleyball.  One afternoon all the boys decided to take a boat out and go fishing.  The girls lay out at the end of the dock to sunbathe and swim and the moms sat on the lawn chatting.  About an hour later the boys pulled up in the boat, got out, and headed for the cabin of the one boy who was there without his parents.  That was when the first red flag went up.

"Something's up." I said to the group of moms.

"What do you mean?' one of the mothers asked.

"Just that something is not right" I replied. "Since when have you known a bunch of teenage boys to walk right past a group of girls sunbathing in swimsuits and not even say a word to them.  Something is definitely up!"

I got up and made my way to the cabin and was met at the door by my oldest son. That was when the second red flag went up.  They had obviously assigned him to be the lookout and he wasn't letting me past the door.

"What's going on?"

"umm... nothing."

"I'm not stupid.  What's up?"

I looked past him and spotted a young man coming out of the bathroom with his hand dripping in blood.
Long story short, he had shot himself in the hand with a pellet gun while checking to see if it had any pressure left in it. In his defense, he had tried shooting it into the water first (smart), then into the aluminum boat (not so smart) and finally into his hand (just plain stupid but better than his face I guess). He had then gone into the bathroom and tried to extract the pellet from his hand with a razor blade (not the brightest idea).  He ended up having to have surgery.


While I was in Portugal going on a tour of Lisbon with the wedding party (250 of us) something caught my attention on the narrow little street we walking down to get back to our tour buses.  It was the movement of two women pushing their way into our group.  I just thought it was strange that they wouldn't have tried to go around the group instead of heading right into the middle of us.  I knew that they weren't part of our group because they were holding street maps and none of us had any.  We had been warned on the bus before we got out to be aware of pickpockets.  We were told that they often had cameras and street maps and would stop and ask you for directions and take advantage of your helpful nature.  As I watched these two women I realized that they had targeted a young mother with her purse slung over her shoulder and carrying her fussy baby.  I quickly pushed past everyone and managed to put myself between the mom and the pickpockets and warned her of them.  I turned around and gave the two women a dirty look and shook my head.  They quickly turned around and made their way out of our group.  I then followed them back up the street a ways before returning to our group.  The wedding photographer wanted to get a photo of them so I showed her where I last saw them and there they were coming back down the street with another group.   They spotted me and stopped dead in their tracks.
Yeah, I'm pretty much a super hero!

                                                The street where I thwarted the pickpockets.

NATHAN THE BRAVE

It's called a fisher and it doesn't look like much but this thing is about the only animal that can take down a porcupine.  Many a domestic cat has used up its ninth and final life thanks to this tenacious creature.  

A few years ago, we discovered one under the bushes beneath our kitchen window. I had never seen one before and the fact that it just stayed there and watched me instead of high tailing it out of my sight led me to believe that it was either sick or had rabies.  

I spent the next couple of hours calling the Ministry of Natural Resources and our local animal control office to see who was responsible for removing it.  It was finally arranged that someone would come to capture it that afternoon.  I went out and placed a bowl of water and some bits of banana near the bush (what can I say?, I have a soft spot for animals).  Just before noon, the thing ate the banana, drank some water, and sauntered off.  Problem solved. 

Ian came home from work and I told him all about the excitement. He was not impressed that I had fed it telling me that I was only inviting trouble. I rolled my eyes and told him I was pretty sure it would not come back.  Wrong.  I came home that night after being gone for a few hours only to be told in a rather cool manner that "my friend" was back most likely because I had fed it.  It was then that I tried to convince the two kids left at home to come out and see it with me.  Brittany would have none of it (she said it was too cold) but Nathan was a willing participant.  He grabbed a flashlight and I grabbed a banana and out we went.   We snuck quietly around the house, me in front and Nathan just behind lighting the way with the flashlight.  I didn't want to get too close because of the whole rabies fear so I chucked a bit of the banana at it.  The thing just stood there and looked at us so we stepped a little closer and I threw another piece of banana.  I don't think it was too impressed because it arched its back, opened its mouth wide to show us its very long, sharp teeth, hissed at us, and then started to come toward us. I screamed, and Nathan in his rush to get away, pushed me in the direction of the fisher and took off with the flashlight leaving me in total darkness with a ticked off fisher. With the adrenaline rush that followed,  I made it back into the house almost before Nathan did. We slammed the door shut and collapsed into a fit of giggles. 

I could hear Ian calling from the bedroom asking what the heck was going on so I went up to tell him that we had just got a little fright when we went to look at the fisher, Nathan in the meanwhile  had gone into the kitchen to turn on the outside light to check to see if the fisher was still there. As I was standing there listening to the second lecture Ian was giving me on how I should never have fed the fisher that morning we heard Nathan call from the kitchen.  "Hey Mom, it's eating the banana".   Thanks Nathan.