True Story

Last night Brandon went on a special field trip with his cub scout group. They had the opportunity of visiting the sheriff's station to learn about the emergency communication system. He called on his way home, about 9:00, to say that they'd had a little "unexpected" delay, but they would be home soon. Kind of late for a fifth-grader on a school night, but I've done outings like this and wasn't surprised there was a delay. I just told him I loved him and looked forward to seeing him.

Well, he busted through the front door over the top with excitement. The story that came out of his little excited mouth was pretty convoluted, and took a while to sort out, but here's the sorted version: their leader had just pulled off the freeway and was at a stoplight within view of the sheriff's station, when they were rear-ended. They didn't have to call 9-1-1 because three emergency vehicles saw the accident and immediately put on their lights and headed to them.

Once they determined that the six scouts and their leader were uninjured, they ushered them off to the sheriff's station. On the way there the boy's decided the two people in the other car looked awfully suspicious, and speculated at how cool it would be if the other car turned out to be criminals, ex-cons, drug dealers maybe, each boy topping the other. Ha! Ha! Yeah, wouldn't that be too funny?

Well, their tour guide had planned to play them some actual 9-1-1 calls, but instead let them listen to the radio of what was happening outside. And as it turns out, the car was stolen, and the driver bolted. Canines were called into the search. There was apparently a gun, but Brandon wasn't sure if it was in the car, on the running man, on somewhere in between. There were drugs in the car, however. And another passenger, who didn't run. He was hand-cuffed, but as of Brandon's report last night the driver hadn't been caught.

So how cool of a field trip is that? Of course the down side was that Brandon had a heck of a time getting to sleep. He was keyed up to begin with, then started to get nervous picturing the guy on the run with a gun. We assured him he would be caught quickly and had no interest in the little scouts in the car. And he knew that on a logical level, but still had a hard time getting it out of his mind.

I called this a true story, despite the fact that it didn't show up in the news this morning (and how could they miss a story of a group of cub scouts being rear-ended by drug dealers right in front of the sheriff's station?) If he made it up I'll let you know - right after I see about getting him nominated for an Emmy of some kind.