Maybe You're Next

Growing up, everyone in town knew Sybil. Whether it was a local mom at my school that was overly religious that Sybil screamed, "Go ask Jesus!" at because of a misunderstanding at a bake sale or a cashier who defied her by not taking a Sears coupon for a new Die-Hard battery when she was trying to buy eggs, she had cultivated a solid reputation.

The police were particularly fond of her for various reasons.  Let's see, there was the time she had a fight over a ticket for parking in a handicap spot at Shop-Rite. She left my grandmother in the car, so in her mind that meant she could park there. "Look at her, she is clearly handicapped." There were the weekly calls she would make when my brother and I would have some fight about who had to get up and manually change the TV channel. There was the numerous times the police were forced to show up because our smoke alarm auto dialed them when Sybil was making her famous Sunday roast. I did love the canned potatoes. In other words, if I had grown up in a bigger city, it wouldn't haven taken long for the cops to have shot my mother and thrown a Saturday Night Special in her pocket-book.  I would testify that I saw her reach for it.

I remember this one time the police were called to our house because our house keeper was having an epileptic seizure. This happened so many times it was insane. Not to side track the story but two great times this happened:

1. My mom pulls in the driveway with Lewis and I in the car and my dad comes running out of the house screaming, "Marion's dead!" She was having a seizure and his instinct was to run out of the house. I don't even think he knew we were in the driveway. Okay, this might be the most hysterical thing my father ever did and I'm laughing my ass off as I type. He was clearly high.
2. I'm watching Falcon Crest with the house keeper, (I didn't have a lot of friends) and she starts convulsing. By the time Hillsdale PD showed up, Marion was done flopping on the shag carpeting and just lying peacefully face down. The cops propped her up in a chair and said to me she looks fine.  Just as they say it, she farts and pisses all over the chair and floor. Not going to lie, I laughed as they took her to the hospital. She was fine just forgot to take her meds.

Back to the story. When the house keeper was having this in particular seizure, the cops came and my mother was being her charming self when one of the cops says this to her:

Cop: Two of your neighbors have died recently. Maybe you're next.

I think complete hysteria would accurately describe Sybil's response. The cops got out of there so fast I don't even think they helped poor old Marion. She died fifteen years later in Jamaica. Not sure if it was related to her poor treatment that day, but I should probably tell Sybil to sue.

About two years after the incident the cop in question bought the house next to my mother.  They've been neighbors for twenty years now. Not sure how often they have dinner.

I keep side tracking this story and I must apologize, but when I was home last, this long retired cop was out mowing his lawn in a pair of umbros and nothing else. I honestly have never been more horrified looking at a man in my life. He looked like a golden yukon potato with four tooth picks sticking out of it for appendages and a smaller rustic as a head. I wanted to take a picture but I wasn't sure if he was still carrying. He did have a nice mower though. Snapper!!

Okay, final note, I just remembered another great time an ambulance came for the house keeper. She ate a pound of corn beef and drank a can of condensed milk. Damn it, I wish I remembered her symptoms for why we called the paramedics. All I can remember is she spent the night in the hospital. 

Story for another time - My mother stopped paying the house keeper in 1985, but she kept working until 1996.