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From the Flamingo Files ... “There Are Millions Of Stories In The Flocked City, And This Is Just One Of Them”As you can well imagine, having prowled peoples’ lawns by the light of the moon for over ten years I have a story or two to tell of strange encounters. Surprisingly enough the most notable happened during the daylight hours of a beautiful May morning. A customer had an unusual request for our Buzz Buzzard display to be delivered around 8:30am after her husband had already left for work. Her idea was to leave him thinking that she had completely forgotten about his birthday until he arrived home later that day to the full Buzz Buzzard lawn treatment. The house was located in a very nice neighborhood of Maple Ridge and the mag-rimmed lowered pickup truck parked on the street stood out and made me wonder if perhaps her husband hadn’t gone to work after all. As I started to unload the display my customer arrived back home after dropping off one of her children at a nearby school. As she walked towards me a car that must have been parked out of sight at the end of her driveway came quickly past us and sped away down the street. She asked if the person had been with me and I said, “No”. With little else being said she simply walked down the driveway to the entrance located on the side of the house. Within seconds I heard her screeching loudly, and it dawned on me what the person in the car had been doing there. Immediately I called 911 on my cell phone and raced over to four women jogging up the street, telling them to get the police there ASAP as someone was being attacked. As I started back towards the side entrance of the house it dawned on me that I better be armed with something if possible. I quickly went to my truck and grabbed my oversized steering lock club that I always knew would come in handy for such a situation. The screaming and shouting continued as I used the club to beat the door several times before the lock finally gave way. There on the hardwood floor in front of me was a butt-naked bearded bald biker-type guy on his knees. My customer appeared to be in a headlock under one of his arms and a small boy under his other arm. All of them were shouting and crying hysterically at the same time. I suddenly felt like I had walked in on the taping of a bizarre episode of Jerry Springer! Threatening the guy with my truck club, I repeatedly demanded that he release the two. As he did, they ran frantically out of the house, and he finally uttered something I could understand: “No man…. there’s two guys in the house with guns!” With that, I looked up to see one guy with a rifle and another with a shotgun running out through the rear patio door and then leaping over the fence. It appears the burglars had broken into the house after my customer had left to drive the older kids to school, only to find the husband in bed, having opted to stay home that day along with their youngest child. My customer came back from the school only to find them both at gunpoint on the floor, and was forced to join them huddled on the floor while the burglars continued to demand information on where they kept their valuables. My SWAT-team style entrance must have given them the impression I was the police, and lucky for everyone -- myself included -- they abandoned ship. There have been three things that remain rather puzzling to me. First is why my customer hadn’t taken the opportunity to inform me that her husband had not gone to work that day after all, and therefore I should be extra quiet not to wake him. Secondly is the fact that I never heard a word afterwards from the family expressing any thanks for what I had done. Not that I did it for the praise but it just seems a little odd. The third thing was a rather unusual phone call sometime later from a rather suspicious insurance adjuster asking details of what happened that day. Sadly enough, even with my prompt cell phone call, clear description of the burglars and their accomplice in the car, and the fact they fled on foot, no one was apprehended. I guess stories in The Flocked City don’t always turn out like those on TV! |
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