Don't fall for it

It was scary.

I refer to a day three-or-so months ago. It's a day I've been meaning to tell you about.

So here we go.

To begin, it was triple-digit hot with high-double-digit humidity.

Not just that day. Every day.

Let's make it worse: We were in the midst of fairly extensive renovations affecting several rooms of our house.

As in, just for starters at the time of the events in question, everything from my front room was in my kitchen while flooring and painting and general redecorating took place in said front room.

Don't worry. There was a narrow path to walk through the kitchen. I could get to the sink and the stove. And the refrigerator, for ice-cold Diet Coke.

If you knew me better you'd know how much I loathe everything being upended in my house.

And did I mention how hot it was? That alone is enough to tank me.

So let's consider the mise en scène. It's boiling outside. I'm inside (where it's also boiling, even with the A/C cranked down to snowball), attempting to function in all the confusion, upheaval, and general discombobulation besieging the household.

Andrew and Rambo were staying with us for the few weeks between the time Andrew returned from the Middle East and the time he moved into his new house across the dam in Lexington, and started his new job.

He was helping TG and me eighteen hours a day to make the mini-reno happen in record time. At the very moment of the day we are presently recounting, he and TG were out back, by the pool, resting for a minute.

I vaguely remember hearing a sound. It was outdoors, but not near. Not necessarily far, but not near either. From the front of the house, maybe the street. Then came a shortish silence. And then the doorbell rang.

I staggered to the door. Who could this be.

It was our mailman. The one who has been the recipient, more than once, on holidays, of my largesse in the form of freshly baked banana-nut bread. 

But on this day, the heat -- or something -- had gotten to him. There was no smile, no friendly greeting. He glared at me from behind sweat-fogged glasses.

Over his regulation-blue shoulder I could see that the peevish postman had pulled his mail truck into the bottom of our steepish driveway. It idled, blinking, there.

Did you not hear me? He demanded in a decidedly schoolmarmish way. Real bossy. And I'm like, ?????

I dimly recalled that the sounds I'd heard several minutes earlier could have been a beep beep of sorts.

But I was speechless -- not tracking -- so he continued: I had to pull into the driveway because your dog was in the street.

He waited, eyes on my eyes, still fuming. When I found no words with which to answer -- honestly it was just too hot -- he jammed a package and several pieces of mail into my hand, then huffed back down the steps to his waiting wagon.

It was most rude.

I turned back inside and closed the door, thinking: Rambo must've gone down into the street again.

(Rambo loved to rack out on the porch -- one of the coolest outdoor spots -- but occasionally he'd wander down the street to check his messages. It's no problem; everyone knows him. Once in a great while a neighbor would herd him home but they were never mad either at him or at us.)

Walking through on the narrow ceramic-tile path that was my kitchen, I glanced out back. TG was sitting in a chair by the pool. Andrew was standing nearby. Rambo was lying at TG's feet, panting. All present and accounted for, not guilty of that of which he had been summarily accused.

Wait a minute ... I thought. And I wished I'd had the presence of mind to say to the meanie mailman: We don't have a dog. Our dog died on April eleventh. So there. And by the way, since when do I come running when you beep from the street?

But before I could even complete the thought, I realized something was very wrong.

For one thing, TG had all at once begun shouting into his phone. He was sitting forward, tensed and upset. Even from where I stood, I could tell he was trembling with agitation.

Which daughter? Which daughter? He bellowed into the last flip phone in North America.

This isn't my TG. Not at all. He's the calm one. I threaded my way through stacks of books and pictures and lamps and chairs to the door which leads to the pool. I opened the door.

Andrew looked over at me. As well as I can remember, he asked loudly where Audrey was. I said I thought she was working. She's self-employed so her hours vary, but I was pretty sure that's what she was doing.

Call Erica! Call Erica! Andrew shouted, punching at his own phone, nearly as agitated as his dad. Call Erica, whose hours are more predictable, and who I was certain was at work.

But I think I called her. I don't remember but it may be a moot point because Erica is infamous in our family for not answering her phone.

Sorry but nothing else about the incident is clear to me. This is all I know:

A call had come through to TG, who answered because although he didn't recognize the number, he knew from the area code that the caller was local.

When TG answered (because, also being self-employed, he always answers local calls), the caller -- who sounded angry to the point of violence -- said that a male relative of his had been involved in a car accident with our daughter.

And that TG had better come down to where the incident had taken place and pay them some money, because the whole thing had been our daughter's fault.

And that if TG didn't show up with payment for damages, the caller promised to shoot her in the head.

Now. You know and I know that when a person gets into an automobile accident -- no matter how minor -- the proper procedure is to call the police, check for injuries, and exchange insurance cards.

You don't hold women at gunpoint, call their fathers, and demand that they come immediately and write a check if they want their daughter to escape death.

But that's what the caller said, in language I cannot and would not repeat here: I'm holding a gun to your daughter's head. 

But the more questions TG asked, and the more he insisted on speaking with whichever daughter was in mortal danger, the more profane and incoherent the caller became. Until he ended the call.

By then, Andrew had reached Audrey, who was safe at work. She had not been involved in an accident.

I don't remember who first talked to Erica, but she was busy at work too. No fender bender on her part.

We have a third daughter -- Stephanie -- but as she lives in North Carolina, it never occurred to us that she was being held at gunpoint. Plus, unlike her lead-foot sisters, she's a super-careful driver.

TG took a few moments to settle down. He called back the number of the threatening caller who'd called him first. Someone answered but quickly ended the call again, not wanting to engage in apres-scam chit-chat.

TG called the police to report the incident and to provide them with the caller's number. Law enforcement said there was nothing they could do. Nobody had committed a crime; it's not illegal to call someone and speak threatening words.

So we'd been the victims of a mere prank. An exceptionally cruel one, but a prank no less. Suck it up, buttercup.

As it turns out, similar scams are attempted all over the country. We'd never heard of such behavior but recently it was being discussed on talk radio.

ABC News, only two years ago, characterized this type of thing as the oldest scam in the book.

Really? Absolutely the oldest? No scam older than this one, of which we'd never heard? We don't consider ourselves out of touch, but it's clear to me that we must be.

A Milwaukee, Wisconsin, news outlet says it's a new scam going around.

Either way, some of the phony kidnappers actually collect thousands of dollars.

So there you go. It could happen to you. When it does, don't fall for it.

At the very least, follow the advice of the late-great President Reagan: Trust, but verify.

In other words, do be diligent but don't be a chump.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Monday

Luvvys gonna love

It was one of those things that happen when you're not expecting anything to happen.

Much less what happened.

Good grief, you may be thinking. What on earth happened?

It won't seem like a big thing to you. But then, you weren't there.

Allow me to elaborate.

A couple of weeks ago Dagny and I were out back by the pool with several other family members. The two of us were sitting on the new black swing in some early-fall, late-afternoon shade.

As we swayed, she was mentioning her notice of avian activity in the area.

Saaaaaa birdie, she said. Pointing up for emphasis.

The wingy things flitted and perched and called and twittered, happy in the sky and in the branches of the tall pines and especially the big oak.

Then my own little thing turned to me. I glanced down at her. She looked straight into my eyes.

You want a kiss? she asked, matter-of-factly. With no warning or preamble and within no particular context. I'd give anything if you could have seen her face.

(And heard her voice. She has a southern drawl; "kiss" is two syllables mashed into one. Keeyus.)

I said I sure did.

Dagny neither puckers nor smacks. She simply lifts her face, lips parted. Her kisses are so brief, you have to be paying attention or you'll later think you imagined it.

No more than a whisper-touch. But so sweet, too much would be almost unbearable.

We settled back and swayed a time or two more. She looked up at me again.

You want a hug? she said. Like, to go with that?

It happened pretty fast but my eyes had a chance to mist. I said yes.

Up drifted her tiny white arms. Like her kisses, her hugs at such times are minimalist, sometimes barely qualifying as an actual embrace.

(When in extremis, she clings and can become quite the barnacle. In non-alarming times, she's much more casual.)

But Dagny's pretty squared away in the display-of-affection department. She knows to put her hands around your neck and bend her head so as to ensure hug-like pressure from her cloud-soft cheek to yours.

That was it. That's what happened.

I hope you won't accuse me of hyperbole when I say, it was a profound experience. It was only later, after Dagny had gone home, that I realized how profound.

While drifting off to sleep that night, I relived it. A few tears of joy may have dropped onto my pillow. Much like the ones in my eyes right now. And I knew I would never forget Dagny's two questions, and that I wouldn't trade the memory for any amount of money, or even for more time in which to remember.

So that's pretty much it.

But in perilous times when so much is at stake; when there is so much to be gained and so much to be lost hinging on the actions of so few, so soon; when merely cruising by a news channel for less time than it takes for a Dagny kiss makes you feel as though you require not just a shower, but to be hosed down with industrial-strength antiseptic, it's memorable to encounter innocence.

And it's necessary to remember every day as we encounter the mercy and grace of God, Who blesses us as Americans with more peace and freedom before breakfast than many people of the world experience in their entire lives, that in this very moment and a few critical moments to come, there is a great deal to be fought for.

And a whole lot to be fought against. Don't forget that part.

I love to sit on my front porch, which gives me a lofty remove from the street, and watch the cars go by. There aren't many; ours is a quiet neighborhood for one so large.

The boughs of the just-orange-yellow-reddening oak sigh while acorns pop off by the handfuls and dive-bomb the roof. The hummingbird feeder hangs still and ruby-like, no tiny beaks nosing around. Although we're having Indian Summer, the hummers have all gone for this year.

When I'm expecting one or more of the children to arrive for a visit or a meal, I watch as each car approaches around the bend for the make and model I recognize.

I thrill to see the gray Honda with the pink backseat front-facing car seat containing the only grandchild (of four) that I get to see enough of. The other three, I'm forced to miss most of the time although they are never far from my mind and always in my heart.

Audrey tells me that Dagny has taken to saying Hi dawling, when they come around the bend and she sees me waving from the porch.

That's because when she walks through our door, often the first thing I say is Hi, darling!

Unless I call her by one of her other many pet appellations: Sugar, Sugarlips, Little Love, Angel Heart, Sweet Thing, Punkin' Girl, Peanut, Precious Beautiful, Poppet, et cetera. You get it.

Or I just say, Hey Luvvy.

Because when it comes to these little ones, the little ones with the great big hearts, the ones so as-yet unravaged by the things that will one day inevitably hurt them, that's what it's all about. Just love.

And that is what I wish you today.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Tuesday