Guns and laundry

I think I picked a bad day to do laundry today.

This afternoon, my ex showed up, after disappearing for a couple of days due to him being sick. So he stopped by today, apparently not working, and he hung out here until the time to go home with our daughter in tow. While he used the computer, I was doing different stuff; making lunch, tidying, reading and doing a load of laundry. I use the laundromat down the street from me (it's not even a whole block down, really), so I took a load over there to wash. When I got them into the dryer, I walked back home and made lunch. After a while, I saw my daughter run to the living room window to look out at something. I didn't take much interest in this until I noticed my ex was at the window, too, looking in the direction of where the laundromat was.

When I got his attention, I asked him what was going on. He said there was a police car out there, right across from where the laundromat was. I figured it wasn't any big deal, maybe somebody was getting a ticket, or something, but apparently there was also a motorcycle police officer over there and more police officers in the alley behind my neighbor's house.

I started to panic, worrying that once again some lunatic was running around, shooting people. (This had happened before.) But I tried to stay calm and not stress over it too much. As long as we stayed inside, we'd be okay, right?

I started to worry about the laundry, though. I mean, I couldn't just LEAVE that stuff there! What if the owner was involved and what if they needed him to clear all that stuff out of there or what if the police wanted everyone accounting for what should and shouldn't be there?

Well, I didn't think whatever it was involved the laundromat. I mean, if there were cops behind my neighbor's house, chances are whatever went down happened in that alley.

Still, I was concerned. I SHOULD get my stuff out of there. I told my ex but he repeatedly told me DO NOT GO OVER THERE. I said it didn't look like anything serious had happened and he said he'd seen a cop run over there with a shotgun.

Whoa. Okay. Now I wasn't worrying about the laundry so much. I started worrying about my neighbors. Shoot. What if something had happened TO THEM?? Why were there cops behind their house? I mean, there was one officer, wearing plainclothes and one of those "crime scene" tags, walking around, looking at something. Had someone been shot? Had someone gotten hurt???

I wanted to run next door to find out. I started to worry that maybe Darrell or Tobby or even Sean had been hurt. That their home had been broken into, or something. Alley or no alley, the cops were RIGHT THERE. I could see them outside of my kitchen window.

But I knew I couldn't go out. I had to stay inside. If it was THAT bad, I could not go outside.

But at the same time...I was grateful. NORMALLY, I stick around at the laundromat while my clothes are drying. And I was SO GRATEFUL that today I had not. I was just thanking God Almighty I had come home and not stuck around there.

So, finally, the excitement died down. I was finally able to go get the laundry and bring it home. The police were all gone, there was no yellow tape and there seemed to be a sense of things returning to normal.

That's what I thought until I saw a news van pull up across the street. 'Oh, shoot. The frekking news,' I thought, hurrying home and PRAYING they didn't see me. The whole time, I was hoping a reporter hadn't spotted me and jumped out of the van to chase me down to ask questions. I was thinking, 'I didn't see anything and I LITERALLY did not hear anything. Please. I don't wanna be on TV!' I got home with no reporter at my heels. Whew.

My neighbors were okay. Whatever had happened hadn't involved them. I asked Tobby if he had heard anything while all that had gone down. He'd been really busy working and wasn't even aware that the cops had been outside. But at least he told me he hadn't heard any gunshots being fired. Who knows what had REALLY happened...but I'm just glad all of us were okay.