I’ve never called 911 before. Fortunately, I have never had to. When my dad had his prostate removed I came the closest to it after he was experiencing an extremely high level of pain and we thought he might have a medical emergency post-op, but we ended up getting him to the hospital in due time with out the need to call for an emergency.
We haven’t had too many problems at home that have necessitated such a call either. I’ve always thought that 911 was for true, life threatening emergencies only. When someone tried to break into our apartment a few weeks ago but ran away when I made noise, I didn’t consider this an emergency so called the non-emergency number. When the neighbors upstairs had a party until 5:30 in the morning last weekend, again – while I know a lot of people do call 911 for things like that, I stuck with the complex security so that people whose lives are in danger could get the real response.
But then a lady who was clearly high on crack, drunk on one too many vodka tonics, or just plain insane in the membrane chased after me after my leisurely lunch of pizza and salad.
Imagine the scenario:
I – a stay at home, homeschooling mother with, yes, a feisty temper and very honest personality, but who generally tries to be a nice person – am pulling out of the Toppers Pizza parking lot after we had a nice and relaxing lunch of pizza and salad. We had a pretty hard morning, dealing with some bank drama after my husband’s credit card number was stolen and continues to not be resolved (it’s never simple, is it?), so I figured that lunch and some tennis would be a great way to spend the rest of the day to wind down before the weekend.
I am waiting at the EXIT of the parking lot for the traffic to clear so that I may pull out and all of a sudden this humungous, silver SUV comes roaring up and drives over the curb and the grass in front of me.
“What the … ???” to myself is all I say and then the traffic clears and I pull out and turn onto my street.
All of a sudden, though, that same SUV is in my rear mirror and the woman is now weaving in and out between the lane I am in and the lane next to me. She’s screaming. She keeps driving as close as she can to myself and the other car next to me, who has already pulled out their phone and appears to be calling the police.
We get to a light and the crazy lady comes within an inch of slamming into the back of my car. So I blow a red light to turn into the nearest parking lot, and all I can see is this woman flipping the bird and making a face that can be described not in words but rather this:
(She kind of looked like Kirstie Alley, only on crack-cocaine, too.)
As I am dialing 911, I see her speed off, already harassing another car. She is honking her horn repeatedly and the sheriff on the phone with me at this point can hear. I give the report and head home, completely traumatized.
What in the hell is going on with this world? I encounter assholes every day it seems. Is it because I am active and participate in things within my community? Or is it because I attract it? Is it because I am paying attention, while many others are just floating along with their minds numbed out on their cell phones and TV shows? In all honesty, I do believe it is the latter; but when the lady on crack chased after me and I had to call 911, I don’t really care what it is. I really and truly at this point just want it to stop.
I can take someone sneezing in my food.
I can take someone yelling at me and my kid for her crying in swim class.
I can take a lot and look back at it afterwards and see the humor of it. I understand that a lot of the way people are now is just a reflection of how stressful the California lifestyle is. I get that so much of the way people act is because they are tightly wound as a result of a shitty economy and a fast-paced, high-stress way of life. And I get that a lot of Californians really are just narcissistic pricks – whatever, I can take all of that and laugh about it at the end of the day, no matter how awful it seems.
But a crazy lady on crack chasing me down the street, endangering Pookies and my lives? I can’t take that. I really can’t. On the phone with the sheriff, I started crying and she said she understood exactly why I was upset and scared. We got home just a bit ago and I am still shaking. It is frightening just how far some of these people will go; or how far they will go without even knowing it or getting the help they need.
I’m going to go retreat, now … retreat to my wine and my cheese and hide in my home until the storm appears to have cleared outside. Who even knows when that will be.
Heather Christena Schmidt 
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