This ISN'T Chicago!

I'm one of those people that is always catching things out of the corner of my eye. Over the years I've honed my ability to look at things using only my peripheral vision. So, it's natural that when sitting idle in a cruiser on the graveyard shift, something is bound to catch your attention, be it an animal, vehicle, person, or shadow. Sometimes when you look, there's nothing there. Sometimes it's your over-tired mind playing tricks on you. In my town, ghost stories are a dime a dozen, but that's not what this post is about (I could do a post like that if people were interested).

The past two days we've had sustained wind gusts up to 50mph. Besides making women's fun bag buttons pop and men's bait and tackle shrivel and hide, the wind has been blowing all kinds of crazy crap around. You'd expect to see a garbage can or recycling bin blowing down the road in these conditions.

Last night, at about 3:30ish, I picked up on a movement out of the corner of my left eye. Looking up quickly, I saw a stop sign blowing down the road and past my cruiser. The wind had ripped the stop sign right of its metal post.

Picking up my radio, I called my partner who was working the desk and never gets excited about anything.

"Headquarters, a stop sign is blowing down Front Avenue."

"Yeah, Roger."

Laughing, I just put the radio back into its cradle and turned my attention back to my computer.