With the stress of final exams and taking two days (!!!) to move out of my dorm, I was…to put it nicely…a little wound up.  I was the energizer bunny and I was going and going and going and hoping my battery would actually run out soon.  As it would happen, I had to work at the kid’s party zone the day after all my exams and moving out was completed.  While I was working I get a text from Katie asking me to come over to her home.  She said it was just her and her sister at home and she wanted some company.  No problem, talking with Katie is usually very philosophical and theological (no joke… I know shock). 

I arrive at Katie’s house to find that she has not eaten at 10 o’clock at night.  Now, we are like little old women who need to be in bed by 8 o’clock sharp to be able to function half normally the next day.  We proceed to talk about the meaning of life and why we exist.  She is slowing eating, seemingly holding on to my every word as if they were diamonds coming from my mouth.   Naturally, I was flattered.  She looked at me as if I was the next C. S. Lewis, and this is where a red flag should have gone up.

After she had finally finished her dinner, she asked me if I wanted her to make chocolate chip cookies.  Dangit!  She had me hooked.  You can’t just ask me if I want a chocolate chip cookie and expect me to say no!  If I were ever captured by terrorists (not that I am important enough to capture), all they would have to do is put a plate of chocolate chip cookies in front of me and I will tell my whole life story.  She didn’t have to ask twice before I said, “Yes!!!”

She slowly started pulling out bowls and putting them on the counters, slowly poured a pre-packaged Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mix into a bowl, and even counted how many chocolate chips were in the mix.   She put margarine into a measuring cup and leveled it out as if she was doing dirt work for a city sky scraper…making sure there was no lumps or cracks or holes anywhere.  Then she stirred the whole mix for the next fifteen minutes (this was probably the reason they were extra, extra fluffy). 

Meanwhile, I had started a new topic.  Crime.  I have no idea how I went from the meaning of life to crime.  I don’t even understand how my mind works, so there is no point trying to explain to you how I got on this topic.  I explained how my old neighborhood had a possible drug dealer, murder, and constantly the saddest of robbers running through my neighborhood to escape the cops; by sad I mean pitiful.

There was this one time a man had robbed a bank across a main, busy road.  He decided to take off on his bike to out run the cops, who happened to be in cars.  Go figure the cops caught him.  Who knew a car could out run a bike?  Not me.

 As I am walking out my house to the bus stop, I see a man in a red shirt biking as fast as he can down the road and right behind five or six cop cars.  He gets right in front of my home and skids and falls off his bike, and starts running.  Which happens to be a completely smart idea to run from cops because in my experience a man can out run a car easily. I didn’t think much of it and got on the bus and went to school.  When I arrive at school I spend the next several hours sitting in a lockdown room (means that no one comes in or leaves and we all have to sit on the floor in a corner, not near windows in case of a school shooting…really I was safer in Israel!) until the police caught the man.  Apparently he could out run a cop car if it took them that many hours to catch him!

I then proceeded to tell her about the first time I had gone to Lisa’s home.  Her mom “welcomed” me into the family in a very terrifying manner.  Lisa’s mom had called her to tell her there was a gunman in the area going door to door and not to answer any knocks (am I really this gullible?).  We were sitting at her dining room table.  Next to the table was a computer desk which was right beside the door.  All of the sudden there was this banging on the door.  I nearly jump out of my skin and look for a hiding place.  The only place I can find was beside the computer.  Naturally, I duck down and hide behind this thin desk hoping if it is a gun man he will mistake me for a hard drive.  I hope Lisa and Tracy are good at self defense because I left them defenseless.  Needless, to say it was Lisa’s mom and they all got a good laugh at me as did Katie.

Katie then proceeds to tell me the stories about the crime that goes on in her neighborhood which is on the opposite side of the busy road of my neighborhood (we really don’t live in that dangerous of a place).  She told me about how a week ago her aunt and uncle saw a man wanted by the law running through their back yard.  How there was a murder a street a way, and so on and so forth.  Can you blame me for being a little paranoid?

Ding! The timer for the cookies goes off.  Yes!  All worries of the crime stories are forgotten as Katie pulls them out of the oven and puts a movie on in her living room.  I sit down in a recliner that is facing her fireplace with the t.v. above it.  Katie and her sister are to my left on the couch with a wall behind them.  To their right is a foyer with a glass door and windows beside it. 

I put the recliner back and prop my feet up.  Katie (the great hostess) brings me a paper towel with a cookie on it.  Right as I am about to take a bite there is a pounding on the door.  Faster than you can say “holy moley was that pounding????” I was up and out of the chair and on my feet.  I look at Katie and Hannah and see the fear in their eyes.  I run to the kitchen.  All the while I was thinking, I hope my energizer bunny self doesn’t give out now!

Hannah is behind me saying, “GO! GO! GO!!!!  Keep going!!!!!”  The fear in her voice is raw and making my heart beat faster.

She runs past me and jumps in her parent’s bed and pulls the cover over her head.  Cover pulling is never good…Not horror films and definitely not now.  Not that any flimsy sheet is actually going to repel a criminal.  If it did all policemen would be walking around wrapped in sheets.  I look at Katie and her eyes are as big as saucers. 

            “Hannah,” she says “remember what happened to the neighbors a couple of weeks ago???????”

            “No, what happened?” She replied

            “Remember how they said there was someone who rang their doorbell late at night and they didn’t answer.  They looked out their windows and saw a couple of men circling their house!!!!!”

            Oh my goodness.  I am thinking of how many men I can take and how man men Katie and Hannah can take.  I’ll probably be able to take out half a man while Katie and Hannah could take out a whole man…so we are looking pretty good.  We just need to hold them off long enough for the police to come. 

            “Call the next door neighbors!”  Says Katie

            NO!!!! I am thinking. What are they going to do??? Bring their frying pan and take out another half a man???  Call the police!!!!!  No.  Call the army…better yet call the Rock…have you seen his movies?? He knows how to take out ten men with his pinky.

            “You know what I am just going to go look out the window and see who it is.”  Katie announces.  She is like the cowardly lion who just found his courage.  I…I am about to be the tin man who has no heart.

            “NO!!! Katie don’t do it!”  I said in the most pitiful, fearful voice.  She continues walking bravely.  I look at Hannah as she dashes past me to the kitchen.

“Katie!!!! Come back!”  It sounds like a goodbye forever.  “Don’t do it Katie!  Don’t look out that window!”

            Hannah disappears around the corner to join Katie. Oh no, if they are gone what should I do?  Hide under the bed?  Too obvious.  In the closet?  Robbers aren’t looking for clothes right?

            No, I will be brave.  I slowly inch out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.  I hear Katie talking to someone.  It hits me like a sack of potatoes.

            “LISA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  As they all laugh so hard they have tears coming down their eyes. 

            Yes, they got me…again!  I look down and my poor, pitiful cookie is wrapped in my hand still…slightly smushed, but still good.  If I was going to die…I was going to die with my chocolate chip cookie by my side.

            As I am going home I see the friendly message written on my car.  “You’ve been KT-ed”

            Yes…I have been katied again