No way!

Things always happen when watching The Soup it seems. Our house is right next to a street that goes through the whole neighborhood. It's rarely busy as we are on the outskirts of suburbia. Last night though we heard a vehicle scream down the street. Not a big deal. But then another rrrrrrrrreeeeeehhhhhhmmmmmnnnnnnnn goes on by. Liz and I look at each other with slanty eyes and word bubbles floating around with WTF in them. Minutes later we hear a helicopter flying around. Again, not a big deal because this is probably the third time a helicopter has come back in our neighborhood late at night with it's spotlight. I also receive a local paper which clearly shows the crime in our area is many blocks south of us.

That's when we heard some gunshots! Or was it? We both went to look out the window. There's a lot of activity going on outside. I go upstairs to get a better view. There are at least 4 police cars spread out with lights on and our whole backyard just got lit up by the helicopter spotlight. My crazy neighbor (always have one of those!) is outside with a toddler on his shoulders looking around while his buddy is smoking next to him. His buddy drives a uber beater 80s Monte Carlo.

We on the other hand do not venture outside and instead arm the security system. I can remember as a kid when I heard a commotion outside my bedroom window like someone cutting the corner and running right through mother's azaleas. The next day there was a set of huge footprints in the ground. Whoever was running was pounding it for dear life. As he should have been with all the police cars outside that night. I want to say there was a local story about a convict escaped from the Niceville jail that very night.

The heilcopter continued to fly low and around our house, lighting up the whole street with its spotlight. I wonder if they have thermal cams on board? Then we a voice coming over a loud speaker. Is it the helicopter or a squad car? It says, "Come on out now..come on" followed by a flurry of Spanish words. I laughed thinking, no way in hell I'd come out to that voice. That voice was really saying come out so I can shoot you.

Suddenly a big white suv flew out of the church parking lot nearby. Apparently he was hiding in the dark. He was headed right for an intersection with a police car blocking the perpendicular lane. The cop must have gotten in or something because he literally rammed the truck. Corner to corner and smash!! We are watching all of this from our bedroom window. You then see 2 men come out from the SUV , one from each side as they run out of view. Then a police officer on foot is running after them coming from the direction of where the truck was originally. The helicopter is all over this now and from a bullhorn you hear those words you always hear in movies. "Stop now or we'll shoot", followed by spanish again. We can only see the helicopter and then we hear several shots fire. Several more police vehicles come down the road. It's a flashing red and blue circus! My neighbors are still outside with a kid!

Ok none of the above paragraph really happened. But that's what was going through my mind. In reality, we just watched the police cars for a while. Our other neighbor has a big plastic dumpster in their backyard. Liz says, what if whoever they are after was hiding in there? I look at the creepy box in the shadows. I say'You want me to light it up?" We laugh thinking that would be crazy if someone came rushing out of that thing. At one point, the police cars finally moved on. The neighbors finally went inside. Vegas still has some crazy though.