God knew that I needed encouragement and confidence in who I am tonight, SO… he sent some crackheads to our neighborhood.

I was drifting off to sleep about an hour ago when a very large/loud truck decided to park right across the street from our house. After about a minute (The people they were dropping off should have been dropped off already. Why, the heck, was the engine still running??) I got up to peek out the window. When, lo and behold, I notice the familiar lighting and passing the torch of A.) the lighter to a pot pipe or B.) the lighter to a crack pipe. I stood in awe at their stupidity (courage?) to sit in a neighborhood chock-full of signs that read “Neighborhood Watch, we call the police,” as they passed the dutchie to the left and right hand side. After a few minutes (and feeling the anger rise in me as these people are blatantly doing drugs in front of my house while my little innocent children slept) I went to ask my hubby if I should call the police. After all, I know how psycho people can get… I used to be psycho. If these are serial crackheads and they find out who called the cops… well… I’d hate to live while looking over my shoulder and my kid’s shoulders any more than I already do. Anyway, my hubby came up, witnessed the raw ignorance and said I should call. Of course, as I was about to call, they then started their engine and proceeded to pull away. I was not having that. I was almost asleep and they woke me up, doing drugs in front of my house.

** Sidenote: At this moment, as they drive away, I’m having visions of being a kid (growing up a few miles from Tijuana) and my dad and neighbors running outside with their guns drawn AND shooting at people trying to steal a neighborhood car. Neighbors were like family, don’t mess. End Sidenote**
**Dual Sidenote: I’d also like to point out that I am a let-people-be-who-they-want-to-be person. If you want to be an atheist, that’s your choice. If you want to smoke out, well, it’s your body, do what you will. HOWEVER, if you want to bring drugs into the neighborhood where my husband and I are raising our children, then you’d better be prepared for retribution. End Dual Sidenote**

As I watched them drive a couple hundred feet away, I realized that I didn’t hear their vehicle anymore. I figured they lived right around the corner and I was going to find out where they lived. I reassured Jase I wouldn’t do anything stupid, hopped in our car and drove around the corner. The only proof that they might have been there was the lights on in someone’s garage. I was bummed. So, I drove toward a stop sign to head back home and pulled up right behind the same truck!! Haha! They turned, so I turned. They went into a neighborhood, so I followed. All the while, I’m still contemplating calling the police. They turned down an even more tightly knit residential neighborhood so I drove past. I wasn’t about to make these stoners even more paranoid. So I did some u-turns and round-a-bouts and then realized that I lost them. I realized that was probably a good thing since the markings on our vehicle were kind of individual and a giveaway to anyone wanting to track us down. I drove home, changed vehicles (into our more inconspicuous vehicle) and went back to the place I last saw them. I drove through all the back roads of those neighborhoods and couldn’t find that truck anywhere. Damn it. I decided to go home. I felt good about my persistence and mother-bear mentality and was confident that I was a good protector of my family.

However, my night was not over. As soon as I threw in the towel, their headlights and row of orange lights on their cab appeared in my rear-view mirror. Woohoo, it’s on! So, I dialed 911. As I drove through the neighborhood streets again, I gave the dispatcher the information on the vehicle (I’d gotten the license plate when I first pulled in behind them). After driving around for several minutes while looking for the truck and completing the call with the dispatcher, I decided that I should call it a night, leave it in the hands of the police and get to sleep. As soon as I left that neighborhood and began to pull out into the street to go home, the familiar spinning lights of two police cruisers caught my attention. I changed course, yet again, and ventured off to see if they caught the perp. Sure enough, they had the truck pulled over and the driver in front as they searched it. Wow, those cops were fast. They made me proud. I went home and changed vehicles again. I had to confirm that this person was taken into custody and this was freaking exciting! I drove by, for the last time, as a police SUV and two police cruisers pulled away from the scene… with the truck… parked in the nearby parking lot.

Seriously. Don’t mess.