A patriot act

See something. Say something.

   The problem with this little anti-crime, anti-terrorist ditty is that some of us see something in everything.

   There was, for instance, that big ass truck parked under the highway overpass I eyed for the greater part of a week. This truck was a dead giveaway. It had terrorism written all over it. By the time I got to work every morning I looked up the FBI’s phone number and as I began to dial my finger hovered over the button first like a waving flag then like a decapitated digit. After all, what was I getting myself into?

   Sure, I could call the feds and tell them about the truck. About the Chinese writing on the outside of the truck cab, a dead giveaway, the sloppiness of the parking the way impolite and irresponsible terrorists do, how the truck’s cargo was not color coordinated, being a mix of light pinks and dull greens, a definite clash. Sure, I could tell them all about this terrorist act waiting to happen and they might even dangle a reward in front of me, which, truth be told, I could really use about now, but I feared being placed on the lie detector.

   I would be forced to admit that there have been times that I and many like me have thought that an act of God would be doing us all a favor blowing the hell out of the stop-and-go Katy Freeway, which is a despicable highway, one of the most crowded commuter roads in the world.  Blowing up a piece of it would give us all a respite from work for weeks, perhaps months, a well-earned chance to sit back and smell the roses a little and regain our physical and mental health.

    The feds might sweat me to learn my true feelings and beat the hell out of me with a telephone book, which is a pretty cumbersome tool, but preferable to their routine water boarding, which is the usual response to whistleblowers if you believe TV sources like Homeland and Saturday Night Live. Apparently, bringing news events to the attention of the law always ends in pain. So I decided to forego tipping off the feds and before long the truck disappeared and the Katy Freeway was saved and I continued to serve my sentence commuting on that dirty rotten road.

    But the other day, as I was patrolling the neighborhood looking for trouble I walked the dog over to the slough, which the realtors hereabouts call a bayou for the sake of property values. There, in a dead end cul-de-sac, sat two Mercedes Benz (Benzes?) in the dwarfed driveway of a home worth less than one hundred K. These were two brand-new automobiles – and both were black, the favored color of all terrorists. If you don’t believe me, look it up.

   There is no way a respectable and patriotic American family would live in a house worth less that $100K and park two Mercedes out there. In America, here in Texas, our driveways only harbor arrogant Chevy or Ford pick ups. It was obvious to me that I was on to something.

   I could barely stand it. I had no pen or pad to jot down the license plates or models of the vehicles and since short term memory is one of my failings, I could not get the information down in great detail.

   All I knew was that I had come across the lair of some Osama Bin Anybody and it was time to tip off the feds. As soon as I got home I announced a pending phone call to the FBI. Before I could get to a phone I was interrogated at length, warned off contacting the feds and told in no uncertain terms that calling the government was the silliest idea the lady of the house had ever heard and I was not to go anywhere near a phone the rest of the day.

   “If you think I’m inviting feds into our hovel you’ve got another thing coming,” she may have said.

   “There may be a reward,” I said. “Remember, if you see something, say something.”

   “Well,” she may have said, “I saw something in the kitchen sink. So I’m saying something. Quit leaving your crap all over the house. Clean up after yourself.”

   I can’t say I appreciated that treatment. Here I am trying to be a patriot and all I get is grief. But I am not finished. I noticed a neighbor down the block flying his flag every day. Most folks hereabout fly flags only on federal holidays and pay Boy Scouts a yearly fee to put the flags up early in the morning and take them down every night so every patriot can spend the day hands free to grope a beer and a cigarette while burning a steak on the barby.

    This questionable neighbor with the daily flag ritual is starting to get under my skin. Flying the flag every day isn’t normal. In fact, it’s downright suspect. What’s he trying to prove? Obviously, he’s trying too hard. This is obvious terrorist behavior. Believe me, you can look it up. The FBI ought to hear about it.

    Hope somebody gives them a ring.