Andy Lien

Setting the Scene

I awakened metformin hcl 500 mg weight loss yesterday morning to the sound of cooing Mourning Doves.  At 5:30AM.  My first thought was, “Get the gun.”  No…I’m a Democrat.  We don’t endorse shooting Mourning Doves, though it has recently been allowed to occur in Minnesota.  Really, my first thought was, “What the heck am I going to do until 8:45?”  My work morning starts at 9:00 and I usually arrive at the office between 9:07 and 9:12.  Being that I only live about 13 minutes from my office, it’s fair to surmise that I’m usually not wondering what to do with myself at 5:30 in the morning.  Knowing that I was beaten by doves, I got out of bed, reheated some coffee from the day before, fed Grendel his IAMS with half & half, made a Toad in the Hole for myself, watched some MSNBC, made a peanut butter half-sandwich for my morning snack, constructed a turkey with cheddar and cucumber sandwich for lunch, then dressed to take the dog for a lengthy walk.  Boy, we both deserved it by then.

With my iPod playing my favorite “cherrypicked” playlist and my dog on his 32′ leash, we took to our quiet neighborhood in Minnetonka at 7:00.  Half-dawdling, half-walking, we made our way the quarter mile to the end of the apartment complex’s driveway passing by all four of the buildings as their inhabitants were waking up.  Over the iPod, I heard music, discussions, alarm clocks, and engines starting.  With many things on my mind, I was focused on what to do with my evening.  I was to have a coffee date with a friend scheduled early after which I was thinking I’d clean my Jeep.  I’ve had shifting piles on the brain lately and that’s the last great frontier for me to conquer and corral.  It’s overdue and I’m turning a new leaf.  I’m giving up the smokes…kind of seeing a new guy…definitely hosting Carson and Ian for the college reunion next month…the Jeep needs an overhaul.  Grendel and I turned out of the driveway and continued our walk along Greenbrier Road.  The air was crisp, but had that chemically treated lawn tang to it.  I looked at the dewy grass next to us, looked at my low-rider dog, looked for a sign…and saw the 4″ x 4″ sign at the corner of the block ahead of us:  “KEEP CHILDREN AND ANIMALS OFF GRASS WHEN WET.”  Grr.  Nice notice.

We doubled back for home.  I try so hard to keep that little guy alive…the toxic dewy grass wasn’t gonna pull its trigger.  We rushed back for an impromptu dog bath, the details of which are for another post, another day.  Though we had departed at dawdle speed, but we returned at warp speed.  Along the way, my mind kept thinking: “And I have to put all the CDs in my Jeep in their proper containers in my apartment and I have to get the stroller, baby gate, and baby seat to Matt and Joy from my Jeep before they have the baby next week and I have to at least fold up the open umbrella in the back seat of my Jeep and I have to get out all of the empty cigarette boxes and lighters that are smashed in the armrest of my Jeep…”  I was mentally shifting piles.

Between 7:40 and 8:45, I bathed Grendel, chased him around with a towel, watched him dampen all of my bedding by rolling around in it, took my own shower, slathered make-up on my overheated face, coiled my wet hair into a clip, and dressed myself.  Not bad.  I looked at the clock and thought, “Heh.  I’m gonna be early.”  I felt like I’d lived a day in a morning.

I went about my usual Grendel Apartment Departure and turned on the lamp in the Living Room, tuned the radio to Classical MPR, grabbed the Kong as he tottered into his crate, scraped some peanut butter into the Kong, and then placed it into his crate telling him, “Stay and be good; I’ll be back later” as I latched it.  Perfect execution as usual.  Next: Grabbed purse and keys, locked door, rode the elevator from the third floor to the basement garage, and walked to my Jeep in Parking Stall #72.  As I approached it, I noticed a piece of paper near the rear tire and thought, “Hmm…is that mine?  Doubt it.  Why would it be?”  I hit the unlock button on the fob per my usual morning rhythm and opened the door.  To chaos.

What the hell happened to my Jeep.

Violation

It wasn’t a question, it was metformin weight loss a deadpan statement.  A moment later, I was able to look around and register what I was seeing…twenty CDs strewn around the front seats, the glove compartment and armrest were opened wide.  Wrappers, cigarette boxes, owner’s manual, proof of insurance, Jimmy Hoffa, coffee cups, umbrella, jumper cables, family calendar of the towheads, baby seat, baby gate, stroller, folding dog crate, magazines, iPod aux cord, phone charger, pay stubs…everything was exactly where I hadn’t left it.  I backed away from the door and looked at the windows.  Amazingly, none of them were broken.  Okay, not so amazing.  After I had smoked my last cigarette Tuesday afternoon, I’d decided to leave my windows open a couple of inches to air out the Jeep overnight.  Aha.  Though my meaty forearm couldn’t have done it, anyone more svelte than me could’ve reached right through the window and pulled the lock.  Easy peasy.

I scanned the vehicle and not only determined that there was nothing stolen or damaged  but also that it was my fault.  Argh.  I wrestled for a moment with the idea and then concluded that I’d better call the police.  First, I had to call my boss.  Steve answered his cell, I told him what happened, and that’s when I realized my voice was shaking.  I guess I wasn’t taking it as well as I thought I was…and I actually asked, “What should I do?”  He was awesome.  He told me to call the cops and let the apartment management company know about it.  Good.  Just what I was thinking.  I hung up, went to close my door, and saw a black cable on the driver’s seat.  It was thick and had a big end that looked like an outlet and a little end that looked like a…what? An inlet, I guess.  I called Steve back to say that I think something was yanked from the innards of the Jeep and he amended his previous recommendation to include calling my insurance company.  Dammit.

I walked outside to make the phone call to the police and after I’d called was able to hail down Linda, a member of our maintenance crew.  I told her what I’d found and her eyes got wide,”Yours, too?” Too?  She continued, “Three other cars were ransacked…and a KIA was stolen out of the other building.”

I felt suddenly very lucky.  I told her about finding a cable and that I was going to have the police check on it.  She got on the horn and called Josh, my favorite guy on the maintenance team.  Josh is really good at giving both Grendel and me plenty of shit, but he met us down in the garage and was quite serious about the situation.  I appreciated the gesture…or, at least, I did until he examined the cable that had rendered my Jeep useless and asked, “Oh, you mean this bike lock?”

So, I can’t identify bike locks.  Fine.  I’m used to ones that are chains covered in semitransparent red plastic with three numbers to turn the dials to the magic code…not the fancy schmancy ones.  As he said it, though, I recognized it as the thing that had been sitting in the corner of my space since I’d first started parking there.  Phew.  I took my little bike lock back outside with me to wait for the Minnetonka Police to arrive and thanked Josh for his expert opinion as to the well-being of my vehicle.

Investigation

The officer arrived and I ushered him and his squad car down into the garage and back to my parking spot.  It’s kind of weird to walk along the passenger side of a squad car conversing through the window as if I were a Secret Service agent…or as if he was trying to talk me out of running away from home.  When we reached the far end of the garage, he got out of the car, took off his glasses, and I swore that I was looking at family.  Greying blond hair, rosy complexion, blue eyes with the “hooded eyelids” that we Scandinavians also share with the Kennedys.  Sure enough, his name tag said “Stromberg.”  I smiled.  My people have my back.  He asked me questions about timing and whatnot, gave me his flashlight to use to inspect the vehicle to determine if anything was missing, and then he reenacted his theory as to how the perps got into the Jeep by pushing down on the window glass on the driver’s side.  That’s when we saw them.

The bastards left fingerprints.  Sure enough, there were a couple of sets of four distinct fingers on the window.  The best way I can tell you what we were looking at for finger placement is by way of Kilroy, except add pinkies and subtract a potential noseprint.  That’s when Officer Stromberg turned to me and said, “I guess we’d better call the Crime Lab.”

CRIME LAB?!?  I was thrilled!  No damage, nothing stolen, great excuse to be late for work, and now the CRIME LAB!  My own CSI: MINNETONKA! I started hearing a song by The Whointro the episode…this was going to be great.  I calmed my Inner Geek as Officer Stromberg told me he was going to “check out the rest of the garage for potential violations.”  Then, his nonchalance burst my bubble, “But if you want to go back to your apartment for a cup of coffee while we wait or something, that’s fine.”  Darned Swede.  Settle down.  Not everything involves a cup of coffee…especially not at a time as crucial as this.  Thinking of the successful Grendel Apartment Departure, I opted to wait for the Crime Lab out by the garage doors and chaperone him to the scene of the crime as well.

The arrival of the big brown Sheriff’s Department Crime Lab vehicle caught the attentions of Josh and Linda and there ended up being a party in Parking Stall #72.  As the Crime Lab Guy (I don’t know if he’s a deputy, a doctor, a what…so he’s a guy) got out of his truck, Josh starting whistling the theme to “The Andy Griffith Show.”  I shot him the stink eye.  Don’t mess with my Crime Lab Guy.  Tall, attractive, young, a little nerdy around the edges, he donned black latex gloves and set his case on the ground.  Linda immediately started girlishly grilling him about if it’s like CSIand whatnot.  Back off, Linda.  I was going to do that.  Instead of playing along, my cop and my Crime Lab Guy conversed at my tailgate about the scene while Josh kept trying to tell me how Barney Fife-ish the guy was…so I shushed him.  This was MY Crime Scene.  MY Jeep.  MY Expired Tabs…that I wanted them to move away from quickly before they noticed the infraction.

Humiliation

Suddenly, all my plans to shift piles from earlier that morning came to the fore.  I felt a little ashamed.  Not only had my blood, my Swede, seen the ransacked contents of my Jeep…soon will the cute Crime Lab Guy.  This does NOT fit with Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend playing my CSI: MINNETONKA intro in my head.  No, The Crystal Method cannot provide the proper background techno music to wrecked issues of Midwest Home and Interior Design magazines smattered with Marlboro Lights boxes, Stride gum wrappers, crusty travel mugs, and CDs by The Kingston Trio, Matt Costa, Gomez, Muse, and Mike Doughty.  In fact, only the bad guys on CSI smoked cigarettes as that’s how they were caught.  I was embarrassed.  I almost offered to run up for my dirty laundry hamper so I could round out the humiliation by throwing the contents of it on the fire.

Instead, I made off-hand remarks about how I’d quit smoking the day before and that’s why the window was open a couple inches.  Crime Lab Guy looked up from coating my vehicle in white fingerprint dust with an arched eyebrow.  Josh looked at me with his own stink eye knowing full well he’d bummed me a menthol while I was waiting for the Crime Lab’s arrival and asked, “Yeah, and how’s that going for ya?”

Shut up.  Go back to whistling.

Something I’d said got the wheels a-turnin’ in the head of the Crime Lab Guy, though, as he reached for the empty Marlboro Light boxes and examined one of them.   “Did you smash it like this?” As a matter of fact, I did.  I told him how I stuff them in my armrest to hide them at the office and that particular pack went in on its side rather than its back…and I smushed it.  Not to give up on the cigarettes, he said, “I’ve got a print.”

This was getting good.  He opened up his kit and we all quietly noticed the Matchbox car and superhero figurine in its tacklebox-like compartments.  Well, Linda was not so quiet about it and asked what was up with the toy car.  “Ahem.  Practical jokes from the lab.”  Uh huh.  He laughed, holding up the figurine, “This one is supposed to protect me.”  Okay, he was a little more than nerdy around the edges…but also a little more human.  Next, he did exactly like on television.  The magnetic black powder was sprinkled on the cellophane of the cigarette box with the blush brush (I swear I saw “Cover Girl” on its side) and then he pulled out the transparent film pieces onto which he would transfer the print.  Next, we waited for him to pull out what was to be stuck to the print to lift it from the box and adhere it to the film.  What for it…wait for it…the curtain was pulled back and out came the roll of  Scotch® Clear Packing Tape.

Nice.  Support your Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, Hennepin County Crime Lab.  We heard the familiar and hair-raising sound of the tape being pulled from the roll…then, slice.  Crime Lab Guy burnished it across the cigarette box and then, again, that horrible sound of packing tape being pulled from plastic.  He’d already coated my Jeep in the white dusting powder earlier, so it was just a matter of sticking it to it.  Reminiscent of wrapping presents, I almost offered to cut off a bunch of tape strips and stick the top edge of each to his kit to help him out, but refrained.  I wouldn’t want to do something to turn the case hinky (nod to CSI: MIAMI).  Finally, when he was done with the fingerprint transfers, he put what I thought was the cherry on my Humiliation Sundae by tossing the fingerprinted cigarette boxes back into my Jeep through the inches of opened window, letting them land wherever they landed, as if my Jeep were the trash bin. “Thanks, ” I said wryly.  I couldn’t get too upset with the guy…he was just putting them back where he found them.

Elimination

Little did I know, my final humiliation was yet to come.  It was my turn to be fingerprinted for an elimination set.  As Josh was making fun of how my record’s gonna catch up with me, I was vainly thinking about how I really didn’t want to have ink on my fingers for the rest of the week.  I thought I’d caught a break when Crime Lab Guy said, “Instead of ink, I’ve got these two papers here for your prints.”  They were blank white pieces of papers.  I didn’t know what sort of magic Crime Lab chemical was on them, but I was interested to see how my fingerprints were going to appear out of blank whiteness.  He continued, “Just smear your hands in the oil on your forehead and I should have plenty to make this work.”

That is exactly what a woman who just preened herself for the day does not want to hear.

I’d barely rubbed my hands on my forehead when he said, “That should be enough,” as if I had drums of it up there and was about to cause the next Exxon Valdez environmental catastrophe by rubbing too long.  I glared just a little as I handed over my digits for him to smush onto the pieces of paper as he saw fit.  Then, out came the blush brush again…and the black magnetic dust…and, like the oil of the fingerprints on the cigarette cases, the dust stuck.  I almost told him to never do that to a woman again–if the hours old oil from the haphazardly left prints of a delinquent could make the dust stick, the forehead trick is entirely unnecessary.  But, I cut Crime Lab Guy some slack and left him in peace to pack up his blush brush, Matchbox car, and superhero figurine into his tacklebox.

The two officers of the law exchanged pleasantries and made jokes about how all the fingerprint dust on my Jeep will substantiate my late-for-work story.  I asked for yellow CRIME SCENE tape just for effect, but was nicely denied my request.  We shook hands all around, they backed their vehicles (unaccompanied by me this time) out of the garage, I shifted all the crap out of the driver’s seat and into the passenger seat, started the Jeep, and saw that the gas gauge was below “E.”  Driving out of the garage and into the sunlight, I looked around to see if Josh was lurking, but when I didn’t see him I drove my dusty-but-intact vehicle to the Holiday station for gas.  And cigarettes.

My last pack.

Now, back to cleaning the Jeep…