Worst-case Scenario

I'm a worst-case scenario thinker. A headache is never just a headache, it's a tumor. If I overdraw my bank account, then it means I'm going to lose my house. If someone calls me at an odd time, it's to tell me bad news. I don't like to think of it as pessimism. Rather, I see it as a result of having an over-active imagination. I never jump to the most likely, the most common explanation for things. It's always the most outlandish, the most overly dramatic possibility. That's just the way I am.

So when I was driving home late at night two Saturdays ago and saw a man lying on his back in the middle of the street just outside my neighborhood... the first word to pop into my mind was simply: murder.

Yes. There was no room in my crowded mind, jam-packed full of hare-brained ideas, for any other explanation except that a man had been murdered in the street just as I happened by. Shaken and gasping, I reached for my cell phone on the passenger seat and frantically began dialing 911. After a few failed attemps at dialing (the first number I managed to dial was 991 after dropping the phone on the floorboard once), I finally reached an operator just as I pulled up in front of my house. Was the murderer still lurking somewhere in the dark nearby? Had he seen me drive past the scene of his horrific crime? Was he dragging the dead body away, the dead body so close to where I now sat shaking and shivering alone in my car? How was I to know?

The 911 operator talked soothingly to me, reassuring me that an officer was on the way and offering to send someone by to check on me - an offer which I gladly accepted as I live alone and was terrified to wait in the house alone while a murderer ran free.

After hanging up with the 911 operator, I quickly dashed inside the house and called my sister. I just needed to hear a friendly voice while I waited for the police. Kneeling on the floor of my living room, shaking violently, gasping for breath, my sister talked me through my panic. I silently calculated the money I'd be spending in therapy over this. I began mapping out alternate routes to my house so that I would never have to drive by that fated spot on the road ever again. My hands were numb and stark white. My lips and mouth were bone dry. My stomach rolled with nausea and I fought back the sensation (I've always been very adept at mentally staving off the urge to vomit).

Finally, after too long a wait, there came the knock on my door. That would be the police. I hung up with my sister, promising to call back when I'd spoken to the police and opened the door in utter fear of what the officer would soon tell me. What kinds of questions would he have? Would he ask me if saw the murderer? Would I have to go down to the station? Testify in court?

The lone officer stood on my front porch with buzzed hair and bottom lip unnaturally protruding from the dip he was chewing on. His stature was not of one who might be investigating a murder scene. Rather, he stood calmly as one answering a call about a kitten stuck in a tree. He didn't question me, except to ask if I was okay. I must have been white as a ghost. And when I began to tell him what I saw, he merely shook his head, rolled his eyes, even chuckled a little bit and replied with a heavy, country accent, "Yeah, ma'am, we got him. He was just passed out drunk, but he's fine."

He's fine. Those two little words brought the blood rushing back to my hands, my face and my feet. My legs turned to Jell-O as my brain processed this new information. I hadn't just seen a dead body. I'd seen a drunken idiot who's stupidity had just scared me into the next century, had allowed me to spend thirty minutes of my life in shock and endure the worst panic attack I had suffered to date.

Still, I was relieved. Not only that the man was okay, but also because I wouldn't have to go to therapy. I wouldn't have to re-route my way to and from home. I was the kitten stuck in the tree that night. My worst-case scenario mind sent me clawing up into the branches of fear and dismay. And it took the Spring Hill police to drag me back down again feeling slighly shaken and not a little embarrassed.

Drunk guy, wherever you are, I hope you feel the shame of someone who doesn't know how to just call a freakin' cab. And thanks for the biggest scare of my life.