And I've now had my second run in with the cops in the span of a month or so.

So I mentioned my latest crazy story on BBP and on Facebook, but here's all the detail about it.

Last Thursday night, I was having my normal exciting night of running an errand or two after work, walking in my house completely exhausted, eating some little thing, doing a couple of things around the house that needed doing, and collapsing into bed.

I had been in bed for a little while and I was watching re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond and starting to doze off and on because that's just how interesting my life is, when I suddenly thought I heard someone knocking on my front door.  It's very hard to hear stuff on the back of my house where my bedroom is (the night two cars got totaled on the street in front of my house I heard nothing, nor did my mom or her husband who were in the guest bedroom which is on the back side of my house).  But this wasn't normal, friendly neighborly knocking.  It was urgent knocking and it sounded like they were hitting my stained glass front door with something.  As I was trying to determine if I really was hearing knocking or if I was dreaming or hearing something on TV, I suddenly heard the doorbell ringing.  And whoever was at my door rang it about six times.  And then the knocking on my glass door started up again.

"Aha!" I thought to myself.  "I can flip my TV over to my security cameras and see who is knocking!"  Little did I know that 4 days after I had cameras installed around my house they would come in so handy.  My security guy was still working on them to do all of the networking stuff so I can see them from my phone, laptop, and tablet they were so newly installed, but luckily I could already view them on my TV.  

Imagine my surprise when I saw three men wandering around my front porch, shining flashlights into my windows, and picking up different items on my porch checking everything out carefully.  I guess birdhouses and flower pots are the official hiding places for bad stuff.  Then one of them turned and was facing a camera and I saw his police badge.  And his guns.  "What in the hell?" I thought because I'm just a middle-aged, severely overweight woman watching sit-coms in bed on a Thursday night at 10:40 p.m. and certainly hadn't called the police out to my house for anything.

The knocking was continuing.

I then looked at the camera pointing up my driveway towards the street where I saw an ambulance.  "What in the hell?" I thought for the second time because I may be middle-aged and severely overweight, but I wasn't dying and had not called for medical assistance.

As I went to the closet to put on my robe since I was wearing the most awful pajamas in the history of ever (a worn out, stained tank top and my pj bottoms had a giant hole in the crotch but oh my dog they are so comfortable so I keep wearing them) I thought to myself that maybe there was a gas leak in the 'hood and they were evacuating everyone or something.  Or maybe something had happened out on the street in front of my house and they saw my cameras and wanted to see if it had recorded an incident (my neighbors had the police come to their house for that one time).

I turned on the light on the staircase and as I walked downstairs there was an officer shining his flashlight into my dining room window.  I got my alarm system turned off and opened the front door.

One officer was standing right at the door.  Another one was in the center of my front porch.  A third one was standing at the bottom of the steps watching up and down my driveway.  A fourth one was standing at my front gate with it closed (so no one could easily escape I suppose).

"Ma'am, are you okay?" asked the officer.

"I'm fine.  What on earth is going on?"

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes, I'm sure.  I was in bed almost asleep.  May I ask why you're here?"

"Are you alone, ma'am?"

"I am."

"Are you sure?"

"Unless someone broke in and my alarm system didn't go off then I'm sure I'm alone."

"And you are positive that you aren't injured?"

"I'm 100% sure that I'm not injured.  What is going on?"

"Someone from Forsyth sent us an email and said we needed to send an ambulance and officers to this address because there is a large group of women fighting each other."

"Um, WHAT?!  I can assure you there is nothing of the sort going on here.  I'm fine, I'm alone, and y'all are more than welcome to come search my entire house if you need to verify that there are no women in here fighting."

"So, there's nothing happening?"

"No sir.  Again, I welcome you to search my house if you need to.  Who would do this?  Was it an email from someone in Forsyth COUNTY or Forsyth the city?"

"I'm not really sure ma'am.  Our dispatch would have to confirm that."

"And you're positive they said my address?"

He then asked me to confirm my street address and his partner looked on some sort of device at the call they received and he confirmed my address was the one reported.

"Well, I just had security cameras installed and the guy is still working on them so I'm not even sure how it all works yet, but if you want to see if we can figure out how to review the recorded footage, maybe a huge cat fight was going on out in the street in front of my house?"

"No, ma'am.  The email said a big group of women were fighting inside your home."

"I'm so sorry someone wasted your time having you come to my house.  Thank you for checking on me, but I promise there is nothing interesting going on here and I am fine.  I was in bed watching Everybody Loves Raymond not doing anything remotely exciting."

He laughed.

I then flipped on my overhead light in the living room which is right next my entryway and again told them they could come in to look around if they needed to.  The officer stuck his head in the door and looked around, said everything looked like it's in place and asked me once again if I was absolutely sure I was okay and didn't need any assistance.

I opened my robe, looked down at my hoots and said, "Nope, everything seems to be okay."

He laughed, wished me a good night and they walked away.

How weird is all of that?

The next morning I called the Atlanta Police Department and asked if I needed to get a copy of a report for any reason and they told me since the police came and checked on me and I told them I was okay, there would be no report.  "But what about the fact that someone made a false report?" I asked them.  "We don't investigate those."  When I see my brother, the cop, and about 5 of his cop friends this weekend I'm going to ask them if they investigate them in the suburban city they all work for.  My guess is either someone transposed some numbers and maybe there was a bunch of women fighting somewhere but the wrong address was reported or maybe some kids out on Spring Break got really bored and decided to play an awful prank and randomly chose my address. 

My security camera/gate guy called me when I was driving to work the next morning and I told him all about it.  He was as shocked as I was.  He was at my house most of the day on Saturday and part of Sunday working on my system and he found the recorded footage of everything.  I think he watched it 3 or 4 times because he couldn't believe it.

I may be spending a small fortune on gates and cameras, but I can't tell you how happy I was that I had it last Thursday night so I could see it wasn't someone meaning to do me any harm who was banging on my door.

Next up on my home adventures list:  This week I'm getting my deck repainted even though I just did that last June (there is a story about that), I'm having tons of insulation put in my crawlspace and attic space (there is a story about that), and I have to have a new front door put in (there is a story about that too and no, the police didn't break it banging on it the other night).  And my mom and her husband are coming from Texas on Friday while all of that is going on.  And I'm having 20 people at my house on Sunday for Easter/my brother's birthday so I have to prepare for a party while contractors are working.  And I have to put together a ton of Easter eggs for a bunch of kids to hunt.  And I have to go buy my brother a present this week one night.  And buy a ham.  And a birthday cake.  And a lot of other food.  And I volunteered to put together a whole bunch of gag gifts from my mom and I since my brother is turning 50 because apparently I thought I would have time for that kind of nonsense.  And let us all pray the weather is nice on Sunday so I can put some people outside on my deck to eat.  And let us all pray the paint is dry by then.

Please send wine.  Gallons of it.  I think I'm gonna start drinking soon.