Crimestoppers!

The other day we stopped at our local gas station, the Cut-Mart, so Lori could buy a pack of cigarettes before we went to her Christmas party in Evansville. The Cut-Mart is a constant source of jokes in our house; it's on the bad side of town and is the site of frequent knife fights. If we need to stop for gas after the sun goes down? We don't.

But on Saturday afternoon the Cut-Mart is a perfectly viable gas station with an excellent little deli that makes some of the best fried chicken on the planet. While Lori went in to buy her cigarettes, I sat in the car and scoped out the parking lot for potential entertainment. A Cairo parking lot is generally more interesting than anything on prime time tv.

There was a car idling in the parking lot next to me, with a driver who also appeared to be waiting for someone. After a minute or two, another car pulled up next to him and a happy smiling guy jumped out of his car and into the passenger seat of the waiting car. Maybe a minute passed, and then he got out of that car, got back in his own, and drove off.

Okay...I was born in 1963, which made me a teenager in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As was the custom among moderately bad teenagers at the time, I imbibed in all the usual illicit drugs. So you'd think I'd be a little faster on the uptake. But Lori got back in the car and I told her what she'd missed and asked her if maybe that had been a drug deal. She rolled her eyes at my cluelessness and said, "Yeah. That was a drug deal."

My only defense was that in the 1970s we had better manners and would invite our dealer in for a Coke and brownies. Don't judge me....it was the suburbs.

So now that I know what I'm looking for, I've graduated from being one of those horrible middle-aged women who yell, "Hey you kids! Get out of my flowers!" to being that horrible middle-aged women peeping through her windows looking for possible criminal activity in the park.

I'd like to be all Elmore Leonard, but I worry I might be more Gladys Kravitz. Can a housecoat possibly not be in my future?