Milestone

Well, it happened.

I'm just a volunteery kind of guy. Naturally, when they asked for people to do security on the church building and nobody seemed to want to raise their hands, I figured, "aw, what the heck," and I stuck mine right up there.

Sucurity is fairly straightforward. It's a week long assignment. Two men from the church are responsible for doing a walkthrough of the church building each night after activities, making sure that all the doors and windows are locked and that the building is actually vacant. Then, we do a walk-around outside to be sure everything's secure out there. Matt was my partner, and he kept the keys to the building. Pretty simple.

Saturday was to be our last day. At 10:05 pm I pulled into the parking lot. At about the same time, a silver car pulled in the other side. Perfect, I thought; Matt's right on time.

I parked one spot away from it and looked over to greet Matt. To my surprise, it wasn't Matt. It was a guy and girl I didn't recognize. We sort of stared at each other for a moment, then they put their car in reverse and left. Ah, well. I texted Matt to let him know I had arrived and sat back to wait for him.

About ten minutes later, I saw another car pulling into the parking lot. HERE he is, I thought. About time, too. But at just that moment, I got a text from Matt. He had forgotten all about it, but told me not to worry, that he and his brother would come do it later and that I was off the hook.

Well, then, who was THAT?

The car pulled up facing my car, and it was about then that I realized it was a police cruiser. The officer got out of the car, one hand on his gun or tazer or whatever it was. "Hello, sir," he said.

Oh, no way. This was too ironic. I was getting the cops called on me for trying to make sure that the building was safe.

We got a call, he said. Somebody said they saw you hanging out here.

Well, yes, I'm running security on the building, but my partner didn't show up, so I'm about to take off.

Uh-huh, he said. Do you just check the doors to make sure they're closed?

Well, no; we go in and make sure nobody's in there, and THEN we make sure all the doors are locked.

What company are you from?

Et cetera. Just my luck; I'm in the middle of Mormon central, and the darn cop isn't even Mormon. At least, he'd never done building security before, anyway. Finally he decided I checked out, and he took off.

I wish I could think on my feet better. There are so many fun things I could have done with him, including;

Told him I was on a religious pilgrimage to this particular chapel. Acted very emotional about it.

Referred to myself in third person as "the Mormonk."

Told him I was there to scare people off, and I'd probably be there all night.

Asked him who'd squealed. When he refused to tell, insist it was Frankie. Mutter something about 'getting that stool pigeon.'

OK, putting that aside, here's the real question; had I not been wearing a black robe and sporting a shaved head, would the cops still have gotten called? And because we're all fairly sure it was that silver car that called them, shouldn't the better question be, what were THEY doing in the parking lot? Honestly, they pull in, realize they're not alone, and pull out again.

Suspicious...