My wife and I have a lot on our plates… a single day can combine any number of these events- Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, gymnastics, taekwondo, band, robotics, football, soccer, and so on. And after a couple of days of the madness, our vehicles will suffer the consequences… snack wrappers, scout shirts, taekwondo outfits, instruments, hoodies and whatever else the turkeys decide to leave in the vehicle. So, we have to clean out the vehicles every few days, and it’s always interesting what we find.
We set aside a recent morning to go out to the vehicles and we would each clean one. Initially there was nothing out of the ordinary… Gatorade, water bottles, articles of clothing neglected by children and such. Suddenly, as my wife was leaning into one vehicle while I was cleaning out the other, I hear this shriek, followed by “WHAT’S THIS?!”.
I panic, not being able to remember what might be in my Jeep that would cause such a response or convict me in the court of marital disputes. She spins around and holding a piece of paper up high, her eyes burning holes right through me. Whatever it was, I was already guilty… no court, no case, no jury, just GUILTY. However, a closer look and I realized that I was off the hook.
The night before I took the kids to Cub Scouts, where a local law enforcement employee brought in some props for the kids to play with and actually gave us some stuff to take home. They got to do some fingerprinting, ask some CSI and Law & Order questions, and even take home some stuff. One of these items was an evidence form, very rigid and intimidating when read. It’s title, in BOLD lettering, was CRIME SCENE EVIDENCE FORM. My wife’s vivid imagination once again got away from her, and an innocent gift from local law enforcement became some bread crumb trail to some fictitious crime I hadn’t committed.
Given that I’m unfortunately quite good at igniting her “crazy fire”, I’ve also become pretty good at extinguishing it. So, I talked her off the ledge, put out the fire, we had a good chuckle, and went about cleaning the vehicles. I kept the form… it’ll come in handy, I’m sure.