This post of Nancy's reminded me of a funny story. Let me state for the record that I realize senility and dementia aren't funny; we went through it with my grandmother so I know first-hand how sad and painful it can be. But despite all that, this is still a funny story.

I have a friend named Jennifer and while we were in college, her great-grandmother started losing her mental faculties. It was mostly stuff such as calling someone by wrong but related names, like confusing two sisters or two boy cousins, or getting mad at Person X because they NEVER called or came to see her, which would be, in fact, because Person X had been dead for decades. At roughly the same time, her vision deteriorated slightly and she saw specks in things. Sometimes she understood why, but other times she decided that people were trying to poison her and the specks were the poison. The identity of the poisoner varied; sometimes that was honestly funny, hearing her rage about the most harmless, least murderous person one could imagine, and listing all the 'evidence' she had against that person.

So there came a weekend and we happened to be staying at my house - we were typically together all weekend, every weekend, so that each set of parents had either both of us or neither. In the middle of the night, my dad was startled awake by a loud, relentless banging on the front door, which continued as he pulled on his jeans and started toward the front of the house. Nearing the door, he enjoyed the added bonus of, "Police! Open up!" [a cry I'm sure he'd been anticipating with resigned dread ever since I hit puberty]

He opened the door and it was, indeed, the police - or more precisely, sheriff's deputies. Without explanation or preamble, they demanded to know if a Jennifer LastName was on the premises. My dad replied casually, "Maybe. Don't know for sure. Want me to check?" They did, indeed, want him to check and wanted to keep him in view while he did. My dad came into my bedroom, woke us up and told us the police wanted to see Jennifer - not exactly relaxing news! - but thus we wandered out, sleepy and confused, though not as confused as The Long Arm of The Law upon my dad's presenting Jennifer to them. Looks were exchanged - not looks but LOOKS. Still, they gave it their best effort.

"Are you Jennifer LastName?" one barked. When she replied in the affirmative, he demanded ID. There followed some confusion as we ransacked my bedroom for her purse and ascertained that we were giving John Law her actual ID (as opposed to a fake ID which some nefarious criminal types might have - MIGHT HAVE - planted in our purses without our knowledge because of course we would never possess any such thing of our own accord, being but sweet and innocent co-eds). She showed her ID, proudly proclaiming her Jennifer LastName, Georgia resident and organ donor, which was when the Cop Questioning got even stranger.

"Are you here of your own volition? Has anyone tried to prevent you from leaving the premises? Have you been threatened in any way?" Yes, no, no and what the hell?!?

At some point I decided that my cousin (a city policeman who lived on the same street as us) must have put some of his buddies up to this and the guys were playing a practical joke on us, so I started giving them smart-aleck, fictitious answers to some of their questions. Note: this is not the best course of action when facing down disgruntled cops in one's living room. This historical moment marked the first - but oh ye gods, by far not the last! - time I was threatened with arrest and incarceration.

There were more questions and rampant confusion on both ends, which finally ended when my dad stalked to the kitchen, called their boss/the sheriff/a very good friend of his at home in the middle of the night, and subsequently put one of the deputies on the phone with him where he was told to "Quit givin' Mike a hard time! Why are you over there botherin' HIM when there's at least one real criminal out there somewhere?!? I better not hear any more 'bout you botherin' Mike!!!" At that point they accepted coffee and talked with us like we were actual, sentient beings and we finally arrived at the truth of the matter.

Jennifer's great-grandmother had awakened in the night and whether not realizing she'd been dreaming or confusing reality, was certain that Jennifer was spending the night with her. When she went to check on the child, she found the guest room empty and started searching. She found no evidence of Jennifer but the front door was unlocked [we are not sure if it really was, if she unlocked it herself during the search, or if she imagined this]. Faced with this, and the utter absence of Jennifer, the elderly lady became convinced that her great-granddaughter had been kidnapped! So she did what anyone would do in those circumstances, summoned the police. When the police arrived, she gave them a clear explanation of Jennifer staying over, waking up in the night to find her gone, and handed over a picture. A picture of TODDLER Jennifer - even though there were pictures of teenage and grown-up Jennifer around, of course the deputies didn't realize that it was the same person and apparently, throughout their interview, she seemed totally lucid. Any anomalies they put down to panic, which of course one would panic in that situation. [Not part of the story, but Jennifer's family did have a live-in caregiver for Great-Gramma, who never woke up or budged an eyelash during all this drama - we think she tippled, but aren't sure - just throwing that out there, lest you think they left a poor old confused lady to fend for herself. Not the case at all.]

But wait it gets better.

Jennifer's extended family, like mine, all lived along the same road/same general area and Great-Gramma pointed out Jennifer's parents' house to the cops. She couldn't bear to break it to them herself that she'd lost their daughter. Well, the cops figured that if the toddler had awakened during the night or got scared or lonely or something, maybe she just tried to walk across the field to her own house. So they walked the route a few times, then decided to wake Jennifer's parents because maybe she'd made it home and was safe in her very own bed the whole time; if not, the parents had to be informed. I'm sure they dreaded knocking at that door, delivering more bad news to another set of parents, and I'm equally sure nothing in their previous experience prepared them for Jennifer's dad.

Jennifer's dad is very calm, very logical and there is very little that upsets him. He could have given MY dad lessons in laid-back, and if you ever met my dad, you know that's saying something.

In response to the cops' knock on Jennifer's parents' door, her dad staggered sleepily up. They asked him if Jennifer was there at the house. "I dunno. Maybe. I can take a look. What's she done?" They replied enigmatically that she'd done nothing, but if he could look that would be good. They were perplexed by his assumption that they were there because Jennifer had done something - toddlers committing assault and an incidental GTA being relatively rare. In short order, Jennifer's dad returned to report, "No, she's not here. Why, what's she done?"

The cops were puzzled by his nonchalance and asked if he knew where his daughter was. "Eh, probably at Helly's. Usually is, if she's not here." The cops wanted to know which house was "Helly's" and when they found out that it was not in the immediate line of vision, it being several miles and any number of cow pastures away, there followed a rather puzzling debate as Jennifer's dad refused to call my house, wake everyone up in the middle of the night and find out if she was there, while the cops could not understand his utter lack of concern at his daughter's whereabouts. Eventually they broke the terrible news that there was reason to believe that she'd been kidnapped (though they never told him that this report came from Great-Gramma, an omission which we did not understand then or after numerous re-hashings of events, a tidbit which could have resolved things there and then). Jennifer's dad said, in a fantastic moment that will live in infamy, "Bullshit. She isn't kidnapped, she's at Helly's," and shut the door in their faces.

In utter disbelief, the cops rang the bell again. Jennifer's dad stalked up, yanked it open, said impatiently, "If she doesn't turn up in a reasonable time, I'll let you know!", slammed it, retreated, then reopened it and spat, "But she's at Helly's!" and slammed it again.

I'll remind y'all that Cowshit, Georgia is a small town and since "Helly" is quite the unusual name, it didn't exactly take some CSI-worthy crime-solving skills for the deputies to track down my house. Which brings me full circle to the beginning of this narrative, for which I don't have a punch line, but there you have it: the time senility brought the cops rallying round my house to rescue Jennifer. Who wasn't kidnapped.