DailySusan Humor Blog

MISTAKEN IDENTITY

But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
-- Matthew 10:30

It’s a good thing we have a perfect God who can keep all of us straight and know who’s who ‘til we get up to heaven. It’s not quite that way here on Earth.

Take what happened last week to my beloved. He’s a conscientious, law-abiding captain of industry. That’s why it was a surprise when one of his employees burst into his office and exclaimed, “There’s a cop downstairs looking for you, and it sounds serious!”

AA-OO-GAH! DIVE! DIVE!

It seems his red Durango SUV had been spotted bashing into a mailbox on 29th and Douglas Streets in downtown Omaha a little over an hour earlier. The business manager had jotted down the license-plate number and called 911. A policeman had tracked the car to my husband’s company. Now he wanted the facts. Just the facts.

“But . . . but . . .” my husband sputtered, “I wasn’t anywhere NEAR there today. I know I’m getting old, but I THINK I would have remembered running over a mailbox.”

The policeman asked, “Could someone have been using your vehicle?”

“No, I was in it all through the lunch hour, and parked it back here just about 20 minutes ago.”

The policeman squinted at him, no doubt thinking: “Suuuuuuure. We’ve got you dead to rights, you closet vandal. You’re goin’ DOWN!”

They looked at the Durango. There were a few chinks on the driver’s side door that the cop said would be consistent with the mailbox caper. “What?!?” my husband protested. “Those are consistent with the fact that this car has 80,000 miles on it!”

Sigh. Law enforcement can be tedious when dysfunctional suspects live in a world of denial. “OK, then, let’s go to the scene,” the policeman said, adding silently, no doubt, “you lying scumbag.”

The . . . SCENE? This cop was serious! My husband was perplexed. Was he going crazy? Was this some kind of practical joke?

Upon their arrival, a bunch of people came out to glare at the dirty, rotten scoundrel who had viciously attacked their poor, defenseless mailbox and snapped that $10 post in two.

They were lining up the crunched mailbox with the tiny chinks on the driver’s side door, and my husband’s out-of-body experience was at its peak, when the business manager came out and said:

“No, that’s not the guy. The driver was Hispanic-looking.”

WHAAAT?!?

Could a Hispanic-looking guy have stolen his car, rushed over and bashed this mailbox, and then returned the car, leaving without a trace?

And if so, WHY?!?

It was an orgy of head-scratching. Finally, the breakthrough came. The business manager had jotted down the license plate number on a scrap of paper. She read it off for the cop.

Eureka! Two of the digits had been accidentally reversed! The 911 operator must have recorded it wrong.

Dyslexia happens . . . but what a coincidence! What are the odds? That meant there must be ANOTHER red Durango SUV in town with a license-plate number nearly IDENTICAL to my husband’s.

Nevvvvver mind. My husband joked with the policeman that, if anything ever happened to HIS mailbox, he’d know who to call. Off the cop went on the fresh, new trail.

The afternoon was uneventful until the drive home. My beloved was stopped at a red light, ironically just a few blocks from “the scene.” Suddenly, he heard the sickening sound of brakes squealing. WHAM!

A truck rear-ended a car, which rear-ended him!

The damage would be slight, but he still sat there for an instant in shock. Then he smiled.

What if the policeman who came to THAT “scene” was the same guy?

And what if. . . .

He was almost afraid to turn around.

If it was a red Durango with a strikingly familiar license plate and a Hispanic-looking guy at the wheel. . . .

Theme song: “Twilight Zone.”

But whew! Different car. And new cop. This time, it was clear he was the innocent victim, not the perp.

It wasn’t any fun, either. But at least it wasn’t so embarrassing.

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