Agent Tom Cat had a post up a few days ago reminding all of us to get out of the way of first responders. They do have those lights flashing and sirens blaring for a reason.

Seeing that reminded me of something that happened to me several years ago when I worked at Beneficial. This story helps explain why believe in being careful what I say. Intellectually, I know that saying a thing or doing a thing is not more or less likely to make something in the real world happen. Believing that it does is what psycholigists call "Magical Thinking" and usually goes away in people once they get out of the first grade. However, this incident, and what seem to be a thousand like it throughout my life keep me emmotionally in the kindergarten crowd. I mean what would you think if this happened to you?

The whole thing started out because I was assisting a woman who was having a psychotic episode. How that happened is a whole long entry in and of itself.

Lets just start from the point where this unfortunate woman was in the Beneficial office, along with the police, who did not have the authority to remove her forcibly, since she wasn't doing anybody any harm, nor threatoning anyone, nor doing harm to herself.

Having suffered from gripping major depression most of my life, I have always had deep sympathy for people who suffer from more dramatic types of mental illness. I struggled along for years, always functioning and even succeeding...with the gut wrenching anxiety, stress related physical illnesses, and what amounts to hours of my life spent crying in secret in the ladies room all as part of my every day life. The funny ( maybe not funny ha-ha) part about my situation was that no one could ever tell, and scads of people thought that I was living the life of a pretty, priveligded blonde in our society: that my friendliness and "niceness" came out of a cheerleader lifestyle nothing-bad-has-ever-happened-to-me-so-how-can-I-cheer-you-up psychological center.

Anyhow, the point is that the main thing the psychotic woman was experiencing was terror. And her actions were driven by that terror, and since I walked around all the time scared half to death in general, I knew that this woman was really suffering. So I couldn't very well shrug my shoulders the way the office manager did and say, "Wow, man, that's wacked!" The police officers were trying to convince her to go to the hospital. But police officers can't be trained in dealing with everything - they have to mostly be trained to deal with criminals. Thus, the three of them were not making much headway. At least part of it had to do with things they couldn't easily control, like their body language ( irritated, authoritative, aggressive) and the fact that they were wearing guns.

It wasn't that I had any special training either - just possibly some insight on how the chronically scared might act - i.e. irrational, blustering, distracting, etc. So I kept trying to talk to this woman, to befriend her, to convince her to go to the hospital, that nobody was going to hurt her, etc. - which caused my boss and at least one of the police officers do become irritated with ME. ( I think it was seeing a kind of patience in action that they didn't have that pissed them off - and also the fact that I suceeded) Finally, the poor soul agreed to go to the hospital if I would come with her, which I readily agreed to do, even though the office wasn't closing for another hour.

Officer Pissed Off left, my boss gave me a tremendous eye roll to which I responded with a look that said "What? You want her to stay in the office?"
We left in the back of the squad car with the quietest and most patient of the police officers, with me holding the woman's hand.

We got her admited to the hospital. Actually, she calmed down quite a bit in the police car and was already more or less herself ( i.e. acting a little sheepish) when we got to the hospital. There was an orderly there who attended her church, so she knew him and responded to him, but still it was 8:00 at night by the time I could leave the hospital.

Officer Patient, whose name turned out to be Steve, very kindly offered to drive me back to the office & make sure I got my handbag, etc. ( My boss had locked up the office and left a note on the door saying my stuff was lodged over at the 7-11 where we knew the clerk!)

"I really want to thank you for helping us with that lady. We didn't know what to do and we were running out of options, which was what made Officer Pissed Off so upset. We're so used to dealing with people who are TRYING to dick with us that it's hard to switch over to realizing that somebody isn't doing it on purpose. Let me at least get you a soda or something for your trouble."

So we stopped at a convenience store. At that time, I was a little nervous of police myself - not because I was ever a criminal, but just that they tend to be big guys with assertive body language who are armed to the teeth. Of course, I didn't want to let that show, Steve was clearly one of the Good Guys, so I felt duty bound to make conversation with him the whole way back to the office.

"You know, this is really a nice car, this cruiser. It rides well, and I imagine it has to reach a pretty high speed if you ever have to get involved in a chase."

"Yeah, it's a cadillac, actually. The department spared no expense on these cars, they're top of the line."

"Oh, wow. Jeeze, a nice car like that - don't you ever worry you'd have an accident in it? I could never be a cop on account of I'd be too nervous to drive the cruiser, worried I'd wreck it!" I said, off the top of my head.

"Yeah, that's happened before. We take a performance driving course as part of our training but you can't control everything. We've had wrecks. If you ever do that though, it's terrible, there's a big investigation and - oh my God - the paperwork! You'd spend days just filling out the forms. I don't even want to think about it." he said.

And then we were at my office. I got my purse by giving a detailed description of it to some other clerk whom I'd never seen in my life before. As I was walking back to my car, there went Officer Steve, down the road in the opposite direction, lights blazing, sirens wailing. In the still of the County night, even though it was only about 9:00, after he passed by I imagened I heard the squeal of breaks and the shattering of glass. At which point I decided that I was under too much stress and told myself sternly to get it together least I wind up in the room next to the lady I'd just convinced to go to the hospital.

The next day, a man came into our office wearing nice civilian clothes. He had a gash on his nose and his eye was a little blackened. After a minute I realized that it was Officer Steve. I got up to greet him, thinking that he was following up on his question about weather my boss, who was a very attractive young lady,was single.

"Hi Steve. What happened to you? A violent perpetrator?" I asked, feeling a little stupid, using the word "perpetrator" but less stupid than I would have felt about using the word "perp".

"You will NEVER believe what happened to me after I dropped you off." he said.

But I got the sinking feeling that I would.

"Remember how we were talking about what a nightmare it would be if I ever wrecked that cruiser? Well no sooner did I drop you off than I got a call about a possible burglery in progress. So I turned on my lights and sirens. You know the intersection down by the mall? Actually, I had the green light, but still some guy just plowed right into me! It was unbelievable! The airbag went off - scared the shit out of me! That car you liked so much is a total loss."

"Oh, no, that's aweful! Are you really hurt? Are you in huge trouble?"

"Not really, the airbag hit me and my ribs don't feel so great. So I'll get a couple of days off. But I'm not, you know, INJURED. I should be fine in the investigation. I did everything right, followed all the correct procedures for having the lights and all going."

"Yeah, I know you did. I saw you go back down the road."

"Um, yeah. That's what I was commin' by to ask you. I should be okay, but if I do need somebody to testify to the board that I had my lights on and all...though they should be able to tell from the condition of the car...."

"Oh, sure, yes, absolutely! Just tell me. I'll be there, any day, for you!"

At which my boss rolled her eyes elaborately at me again. God how I hated that job!

Since then, when I meet new people, I try hard to only bring up HAPPY possibilities.

Anyway, as you're driving, remember the kind and patient Officer Steves and dedicated firemen like Agent Tom Cat. Just pull off the road. And don't even THINK about having an accident!