March Madness

There is currently a helicopter noisliy circling in my neighborhood. Every thirty to forty seconds it’s massive blades move the air above me and and my closest 400 neighbors. The floor is rumbling and my one plant is shaking its sole leaf. I don’t know if you are familiar with this tactic, but somewhere along the road of my life-education, I was told, hovering aircrafts above = the police are looking for a criminal on the run.*

Now, I don’t profess to know anything about anything in this world: not computers, not the proper way to cook pasta, not the correct way to pronounce the word, “niche”. But I do wonder, as I sit here in my apaertment built in the 1950’s with its slated windows that are easier to break into than a Capri Sun juice box, if I can hear the helicopers and I can feel the helicopters approaching, isn’t the element of surprise kind of lost on the person whose on the run?  I mean, those choppers aren’t sneaking up on anyone who is remotely conscious, so how do they intend to catch a ne’er-do-well in the middle of the night?

All they’re really doing is pissing off the neighborhood. So much so, eventually, we’re going to come bolting out of our houses, heads turned up to the sky merely to shake our angry fists at the noisy flying machine interrupting our episode of The New Girl- the one we happen to be re-watching for the seventh time because it’s the only thing that takes our mind off our sad sac of woes.

But then, pulling us out of our homes onto our front porches, or sidewalks, actually only puts us at risk of bumping into the individual who is actually on the lam.

I mean, if they really thought it through, all suspect would have to do, (I may or may not  occasionally entertain the idea of what it’s like to think like a criminal) is stop running, look disgruntled, possibly smear some food crumbs on their shirt and look up at the sky with the aforementioned fish shaking gesture. Wait, wait, I mean fist shaking.  If all of us angry neighborhooders stormed out of our houses shaking fish in the air, you bet the police would have more to worry about than some street urchin hiding in the recyclables.

But with only their fists as a weapon, said suspects would blend in with the rest of the grouchy curmudgeons who are home on a Saturday night binge watching sitcoms, eating bowls of buttered pasta and wondering why their lives aren’t fulfilled.

Even the dumbest of crooks has to know how to play possum. I mean really, come on people, I’ve spent a total of seven minutes thinking about how to avoid capture and I don’t want to brag, but I think I’ve come up with a pretty legit plan. So how has this not eluded our law enforcement?

So I just wonder, perhaps, maybe, the helicopter officials could think about another way to try to find their troubled peeps.  One that doesn’t involve the intermittant swoosh of noise making both my internet and my heart flutter into buffering mode. Honestly, I just don’t need the added aggravation.

I mean, as of right now. All that’s happening is some hooligan is hiding out in an alley waiting till it all blows over. Until they get it figured out, he’ll be enjoying my sitcom through my back window probably more than I will.

*I love this image of the duct taped bandit I pilfered from the internet. Good news, we can’t see your face buddy. Bad news, when you tear off that duct tape, you won’t be able to see it either.