Scoping Out The Neighbors

Scout and Colt's friends used to hang out around here all the time. One time I was cooking dinner when I looked out the carport window and saw the boys and their friends on the carport. I saw, to my shock and horror, a rifle with a scope on it, poking through the fence,  pointed at the church parking lot across the street. People were in the parking lot. One of Scout's stupid friends was pointing Scout's rifle towards the people at the church.

God, I thought, what if somebody at the church sees that barrel and thinks we're a sniper and calls the law! I ran outside and started yelling at them. Scout said they were looking through the scope trying to see something. I realized that the gun had the gun lock on it so it wasn't able to be fired but I still wasn't satisfied. Scout said that they were trying to see if there was anybody on the hill in the woods behind the church. He said Tom* and John* had been chased through the woods beside the church.

Scout and Colt's friends, Tom and John, walked through the woods to get to our house. They said that they had been chased by some men riding four wheelers, wearing camo, and carrying crossbows. They stumbled on a camp in the woods and ran away scared. They said they saw a camp set up and there was a van or box truck in the woods they had been living in. They said the men were Mexican. The more they talked, the more Mexicans there were, and the wilder the story became. It went from two to three, to ten or twenty. The number kept growing and growing.

They kept pointing the rifle, looking towards the hill. Tom tried to point out people he could see in the trees. He kept saying that they were so still that they nearly blended into the background but if you looked real hard you could see them. John kept insisting he saw them, too.

I kept asking the boys questions to see if they were high or something but they looked normal. Well, as normal as you can look when you're telling some outrageous tale. They finally said there were probably 80 Mexicans in the woods. I wasn't buying it.

I went inside and told Donny about the boys and their outlandish tale. I thought the boys were nuts but Donny came outside and tried to see if he could see anything. Tom kept standing next to Donny, patting him on the shoulder, and pointing which way to look and Donny was looking through the scope. I kept asking everybody if anybody else saw anything in the woods but nobody paid attention to me.

We got out the binoculars and tried to see something but we couldn't make out a thing. Donny got it in his mind that somebody should call the sheriff and report the incident. I told him that he could call them if he wanted to but I wasn't. He went inside to call 911. When he came back outside he said that they were going to send someone to check it out.

Donny and the boys went across the street to the church parking lot when the sheriff's cars came. He told the sheriff's deputies that he didn't actually see anything but John and Tom did. The deputies asked them some questions and finally sent one  fat deputy up the hill to see if he could see anything. Tom pointed to a scraggly little pine tree and said they were hiding behind that. The deputy just shook his head in disgust and started back down the hill. He said there wasn't anything up there. Of course, he didn't go very far, either. Scout snickered because they sent the cop who was the most out of shape.

After the deputies left, the boys came back to the house to talk about their strange experience. More details came out.

Tom and John swore that they really saw a bunch of Mexicans in the woods and they were really chased. When everything calmed down Scout and I talked about what would become known as the "80 Mexicans in the woods incident." 

We began to piece things together. I heard things that he didn't hear, and he heard things that I didn't hear. What I thought was initially a few men dressed in camouflage with bows became a major encampment.

As we swapped information we realized that the story was much bigger than we thought it was. Tom told Scout that the Mexicans had beat on the backdoor at their trailer and yelled for them to come outside. Tom said he and John ran out the backdoor and through the woods, trying to get away from them. Then he told Scout about the camp they found and about being chased through the woods by men on four wheelers.

The story was so intense that Scout believed him until Tom kept telling Scout that there was a Mexican in top of a pine tree wearing a white t-shirt and a red cap. He kept saying, "Don't you see him? He's right there." Tom told him that one Mexican was wiping the hood of the church bus with a rag after the deputies left. That's when Scout was sure they were seeing things. He said they had been up all night the night before and were probably hallucinating.

Come to find out they had gotten their friend Sabrina* in trouble the night before when they were riding around and caused Sabrina to have an accident. Their lack of sleep and the paranoia they were feeling from the trouble they had the night before must have caught up with them and caused them to flip out.

Donny was lucky the deputies didn't arrest him for filing a false report. He was just reacting to the excitement around him. The boys were lucky they weren't arrested for making a false statement. They had to take a breathalyzer test before the deputies let them go. I was lucky because I got to see all the excitement right here. I love Resaca. There's never a dull moment.

We have a new rule at our house. Don't call the law unless somebody's dead.

AS ALWAYS PIO  **************************************************************************
SABRINA said:

But of course I have a few things to add, lol. That was a crazy night. And I will say even though the guys got me put in jail and my car impounded, I still love them all to death. You forgot to add that I was hiding at your house while everyone was across the street, I had had my feel of officers for one 24 hour period. It was hard to sit back knowing what was going on, but being the girl I was ignored and it all happened so fast I had no time to pull you and scout off to the side to tell you they were not in the right mind state. It took me 3 days to convince Tom that there was not 80 Mexicans in the woods. I eventually had to go into the woods with him so that he could see for himself that there was nothing there. I will never forget the pain in my heart when I saw his face drop and him realizing that he had imagined it all. It is all pretty funny now, but at the moment it was pretty serious. It is funny how things can change in 24 hours, going from having a good day to fighting with people you had never seen to having a wreck and your friends take off only to leave you to go to jail. Then when you get out they are tripping so bad that they have the whole county looking for rouge Mexicans. It was a lesson I hope I have totally learned from. Love all you guys! You keep my life interesting!

*aliases