Up to No Good

 

We had just returned from searching various mudflats revealed by the lowering of the river in honor of the arrival of Stormy Debby when I heard the sitting porch door close.

Nosy critter that I am, I went to see why the boss went out on the porch.

And then I heard what had drawn him out there...urgent orders were being issued behind the bushes at the corner of the driveway in front of the house. We listened for a minute, then heard the tortured groans of spinning wheels right in front of us.

Of course we ran to see what the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks was going on. We are both just that kind of fool.

I got there first because I still had my boots on from the birding trip.

There in the driveway, crossways and big time stuck, was a battered silver Ford Explorer, accompanied by a skinhead kinda guy with a little red billy goat beard, and a woman with partly pink hair. He was exhorting her to hurry and get the car unstuck. However it was buried, nose in one bank, back tires in the other. 

We were both pretty darned angry, because to get where they were they had to ignore a bright yellow no trespassing sign at the bottom of the driveway. Also because they were tearing up the driveway, which did not need holes and trenches dug in it what with all this rain going on.

Things got worse. I pointed out that they had passed the sign. He claimed they couldn't back down the driveway from where the sign was and had come up the hill to turn around. Yeah, right. The sign is right at the bottom of the drive just a few yards from the road. We put it there on the advice of the state police after another such incident. Anyone could easily back down from there. What was readily apparent was that they came up hoping to do something nefarious to the house, saw when they reached the corner where they got stuck that it was occupied, (you can see my plethora of plants on the porch from there) and attempted to make their exit before anyone noticed them.

I won't go into too much detail about how obnoxious the guy was. The boss started getting really upset and I managed to convince him to go in the house....his surgery was way too recent to get his blood pressure up that bad and he was REALLY mad!

The guy had some kind of winch in the back of the car and wanted to tie up to the cottonwood tree on the corner. I was concerned that the cable would cut in and kill the tree which is a big one, and besides the guy was a real jerk, so I refused to let him..

He ignored me and tied up to another tree further down the driveway and proceeded to tell his girlfriend how to drive, tearing things up even more.

I called 911 and began to video the show. Of course the phone camera acted up, but I got a lot of it, plus pictures of the license plate and of both of them.

Eventually they got the car out and....whodathunkit...backed all the way down the driveway.

There were two county sheriffs waiting for them there.

The officers came up to talk to us about it and asked what we wanted to do. We both wanted to press charges, but they seemed a bit reluctant to do so, what with the guy only having gotten stuck in our driveway and then gotten himself out. With the new New York laws that wasn't going to mean much. We might have pushed the issue, but they then told us that he was in the back of the second car as there were warrants out for his arrest so he was going to jail anyhow. We saw no reason to charge the lady he was with. She was polite and apologetic and offered to try to fix the damage to the driveway if we would loan her a shovel.

The guy was another story. He had so much brass that he asked how I dared to swear at him while calling me the colloquial word for an anal orifice. I did use a little...and only a little...inelegant language I admit it. I try pretty hard not to embarrass the little children but most of a lifetime around cows leaves a mark.

When the excitement was over I asked the officers if I should make the guy YouTube famous. I guess they can't answer that question so I am asking you...I have a lot of fun with my YouTube channel...should I feature the fiasco...or is likely to make trouble for me? Please let me know what you think

Anyhow, now we know why he was in such a Godawful hurry to get out of our driveway. Outstanding warrants will do that every time.

Many, many thanks to Montgomery County Sheriff's Department. They have never let us down when we have had need of them and this was no exception. Thanks to their prompt arrival we at least have some satisfaction over the deal and whenever Stormy Debby stops being such a drowner, the boss can fix the driveway with the skid steer.

Update: I published the video. Just couldn't stop myself.