CAR VERSUS GARAGE

Just when you think you have run out of things to post about, a car runs into your neighbor's garage! Today at approximately 11 am, a car came around the corner at the end of our street a little too fast. He missed hitting a tree, swerved and rammed into our neighbor's garage with a tremendous bang. Our neighbor was out running an errand. I was sitting on a chair by the front window so I jumped up immediately. I saw the car crashed into the garage. At first I thought it was my neighbor who had lost control of her car. (oh, I forgot to mention it was raining.) I yelled that our neighbor crashed her car. I jumped up and ran outside. On my way down the stairs I remembered that our neighbor got a new car and it was a SUV not a sedan. The car in the garage was a black car like a BMW. When I got the bottom of my stairs he had backed out and was driving away right past me. I saw a dark/black haired man driving a black car with racing stripes. I thought the stripes were red. I saw the license plate and started to say it out loud like they trained us to do. I kept repeating it while I ran inside. Over and over I said it out loud. I got inside and wrote it down. I then called 911 and it was chaotic. Dogs barking, people running, dogs getting outside. The dispatcher was great. I was out of my mind, out of breath, and trying to get the dogs to stop barking. I kept apologizing and he kept saying this was normal just take a breath and answer the questions. We then used our neighborhood watch list to contact the neighbor on her cell.

A few minutes later the police came and they asked me the same questions. Would you be able to pick him out of a line up? (possibly but probably not) What was he wearing? (don't know he was sitting down in a car) What color were the pin stripes? (I said red) What kind of car was it? (BMW? I don't know cars.) What time did it happen? (what time is it now?)

Then after the homeowner came home and the police left, a bunch of us went outside to talk about it. A funny thing, witnesses are the worst. Pin stripes: I said red, Brenda said gold or silver and our neighbor said white. Type of car: I said BMW, our neighbor said Mustang and the license plate came back Honda. The one thing we agreed on was that the car was black! We do may crappy witnesses.

But I feel good that I followed the training and focused on the license plate. I am 99% sure I got it right. I also followed the rule to not yell HELP. They say to not yell help but to yell a task or a thing to do: Like House on fire, call 911. I yelled car ran into Xs house, got the license plate and called 911. All sorts of neighbors heard me. Good or bad, I guess!

Oh, the neighbor called a garage company and they came and did a temporary fix. Tomorrow they install a new garage door.

That was my exciting day.

Until tomorrow...