It's too bad I have such a good imagination...

Monday morning as Daisie and I went outside for her duty run, I could hear voices, talking loudly…Familiar voices, like the voices I hear on KGMI…Ah-ha! It must be the radio in the shop, but why would the radio be on so loudly? No one was supposed to be in there…

Suspiciously, I crept up to the window of the shop, but did not need to peek in because now it was obvious that the radio noise was coming from the Kenworth truck. The Kenworth? No one has driven the Kenworth for ages, so how did the radio get turned on? And then I could see that the lights were on too…

I hustled into the house to report to The Farmer this strange occurrence…

“Well, did you go look to see if someone was in there?” he asked.

Right…oh that was my first thought! Maybe I can make a new friend today and meet whoever is hiding in our Kenworth truck!

I informed him that, as the man of the house, it was his job to check out strange occurrences and the possible presence of real-live boogeymen, even if I did have the dog with me when I became aware of the incident.

 So he did…

No one was in the truck, but someone obviously had been. There were ashes and the lingering odor of cigarettes, and, of course, the radio and lights were on. The Farmer still likes to believe that we are living in the 60’s and leaves the keys in his old truck, so someone helped himself to some shelter, heat, and a little entertainment overnight.

You’re welcome. Now please go away and never come back…

And, to relieve your minds and mine, the keys are no longer in the truck.

At this point, the incident was over for The Farmer but my mind was still going…And in reviewing the history of the past day, I remembered that Sunday night there were Law Enforcement vehicles and officers in the neighborhood for a couple of hours, just north on the Halverstick Road. The thought occurred to me that perhaps a fugitive had used our Kenworth to hide out…

I almost blurted out my deduction when I remembered the mocking comments I often get about my “over-active” imagination... so I kept my thoughts to myself.

And tried to forget them.

A little later, Daisie and I went out for our morning walk. We were on our second loop around the field, out in the glorious sunshine, heading south when I suddenly saw a big burly dude running in our neighbor’s raspberry field.

No one in our neighborhood runs…and he was headed west toward the buildings…where had he come from? And – he was wearing shorts (It was freezing!), and his shirt was long and looked kind of like a bathrobe…

Immediately, it came to me! This was the guy who ran away from the police (or Border Patrol) the night before and hid in our truck to keep from freezing to death, and then when it got light, he had to go hide out in the neighbor’s field, and when he saw me coming, he decided to act like he was jogging in his bathrobe around the field and move to another hiding place!

It just makes sense…

So I decided that I would not cross paths with this guy, and turned around to re-trace my steps back to the house. He could be armed and dangerous…and I needed to get Daisie to change course and come back with me so that he would not feel threatened by her and do something to her…

I walked fast.

And when we got to the house, I told Randy about my deductions, very calmly of course, and he smiled, and told me to quit watching so many crime shows in my spare time.

And then I thought about calling my son, the newsman, and see if he could find a police report about the fugitive that must be on the loose…I hadn’t heard anything about it when I was listening to the radio.

And then a little problem with my theory became obvious…No one but me seemed to be looking for a fugitive.

Hmmm…

And we did get some new neighbors recently…maybe they are fitness buffs.

And we do know some neighbors who have no means of travel except on foot, and might have decided we wouldn’t begrudge them a little warm-up in the truck we left open so conveniently.

(I think I’m being very gracious on THAT one…)

But maybe I should quit watching those crime shows.