Never a Dull Moment

As many of you know, I have a special knack for getting myself into situations that can only be described as "wrong place at the wrong time." Just to update everyone: it is a fact that some things in life NEVER CHANGE.

I took my car to the shop today to get an oil change, etc. and left it there while my mom and I went to Tuscaloosa to play for the afternoon. We got back into town about 8:30, and I wanted to run into Old Navy (which is right across the street from the place we left my car) before we went to pick up my car. So far, so good.

I was not in Old Navy more than about 25 minutes, but when I came out I could hear a really loud alarm going off in one of the surrounding buildings. Neither my mom nor I could figure out exactly which building the alarm was coming from, so we headed across the street to get my car. As we pulled into the parking lot of the car place (exquisite terminology, huh?), it became glaringly obvious that the blaring alarm was coming from this very business.

Of course, my mom freaks out, believing that a team of squad cars will come barreling into the parking lot at any second, and pulls back out of the parking lot and into the Taco Bell across the street. We proceed to pull into a parking place angled toward the car place, I guess so that we could have a prime vantage point for our Miami Vice-like stakeout of the impending action sure to go down... or something like that.

Suddenly, the alarm stops just as unexpectedly as it began.

We pull out of the Taco Bell and back into the parking lot of the car place. Everything looks normal. I get in my car, adjust my seat and start the car. I'm just looking into my rear view mirror to back up when a pair of unfamiliar headlights sweep over my shoulder, and a blue light flashes behind me. Just great.

One of Columbus' finest pulls up right beside me and rolls down his window; I'm expecting him to ask me just what in the hell I think I'm doing, and where exactly do I think I'm going. By some stroke of providence, he manages to understand that I'm simply there to pick up my car, and I have no connection to the insanity that is the alarm. As I drove out of the parking lot, I could see him "checking the perimeter" of the building and brandishing his flashlight at all suspicious shadows.

All in all, this was one of my luckier scrapes, and it was actually pretty funny. Only I could make something as mundane as getting the oil changed in my car into an adventure involving the police. If asked to make a list of adjectives to describe my life, dull wouldn't even be one to consider.