Be aware, yall: If it happened to me, it could happen to you…

Dorothy Wilson The Marion Mom

It’s never good when the police awaken you in the middle of the night.

In our case, two Marion policemen spent 20 minutes trying to awaken us, banging on the doors, front and back, while the dog frantically followed, barking his best alert.

If only they’d sounded like a crying baby, I would have stirred for sure. Sometimes, I imagine I hear the baby faintly crying in her bedroom behind closed doors, and only after checking the monitor realize it’s the air wheezing in and out of my unconscious husband’s nasal passages.

But no, police lights blazing outside my bedroom window, dog’s frenzied barking, loud knocking on all entry doors, we couldn’t be bothered.

Okay, well, honestly, the dog barking did wake me up. But I tried to ignore it because just the night before, the dog’s barking awakened me, and when I groggily investigated, I discovered a slow-moving marsupial on our front porch, baring its teeth and unsuccessfully dodging the dog’s occasional nips. I spent thirty minutes trying to safely separate the two and get back to sleep.

So on the night in question, I literally rolled over and covered my ears with the pillow, unwilling to rouse from the warmth of my electric blanket for another refereeing session. I eventually threw on a thin robe to deal with the dog and quickly noticed grown men in uniform peering through the windows. I guess I’d be barking, too! I personally knew both men.

Officer Millsap had tried calling the Hubs during the barking frenzy, but due to the marvelous invention of Do Not Disturb, his calls didn’t go through. (For future reference, if you call twice in a row, you’ll break through the Do Not Disturb feature on many phones.)

When they couldn’t wake us up, they went next door to awaken my parents for assistance, in which they succeeded just about the time I opened my own door.

And this is what they said: “Your jeep has been stolen.” I gasped and checked the driveway. Yup, stolen.

“They have it in West Memphis. Can you go get it to avoid the tow fee?”

Absolutely. The tow fee is highway robbery. (Ask me how I know.) “Let me go get dressed,” I said, rushing back to awaken the Hubs with this sad news.

Upon returning, the officer reported that unfortunately, the West Memphis police had already had it towed.

So the thieves apparently rifled through the unlocked vehicles in our driveway and succeeded in boosting the Jeep.

I noted with interest that it appeared our 9-passenger maxivan had not been burglarized.

I theorize that the robbers opened the door, smelled the rotten stench left by six pubescent slobs and one toddler who can’t help herself, spied the Home Alone-type booby traps sure to injure any wayward step, and wisely backed away.

It was likely the worst night in their thieving history. They absconded with less than $3 in change that my daughter kept in a jar for incidentals from Sonic and perhaps a wad of tissue pasted to the coins with leftover ketchup. No guns, no sunglasses, no electronics.

They stole a vehicle as old as my entire adulthood for a joyride, and when the West Memphis police tried to pull them over, they fled the stillmoving vehicle and locked the doors behind them.

The police then broke the driver’s side window to steer the vehicle away from a house and into a pole.

The thieves were never caught, but when they are, I’d like a thousand bucks from them to pay for the tow and the damage. Better make it $1,003 to replace my daughter’s Sonic fund. That’s not asking too much, is it?

In the grand scheme of things, of all the reasons an officer would be awakening you in the dead of night, this seems to be as good a scenario as you could ask for. “Your car has been stolen, mildly damaged, and recovered…” We retrieved the vehicle from Marion Towing at 8am the next morning and drove it right to the body shop. Meanwhile, I let my daughter borrow my car for her necessary school and sports events.

She asked me if she could

See MOM, page A16 MOM

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take Sonic to a friend just before her 9:30 curfew, to which I agreed.

At 9:28 pm, I received a frantic phone call.

“The Cadillac just died in the middle of the road. It won’t start. It won’t go into neutral. What do I do?”

I jumped off the couch. “I’ll be there in three minutes,” I hollered, weighing the risks of staying inside a stranded vehicle in the middle of the lane on Highway 64 versus waiting outside the vehicle without the protection of airbags in the event of a collision.

We could not get the thing to crank or into neutral. State Trooper Philip Hydron drove by, assessed the dangerous situation, and stayed with us past his shift until we could all safely leave.

As it turns out, we had to call for a tow. Again. I think we’ve gone nearly a decade without calling a tow truck, and all of a sudden, we need two tows in one day.

Holly Chevrolet tells me the engine bolts came out, the engine fell on the electrical harness and “smushed the wires.” That’s the technical term for it. The electronic communications got all squirrelly and left my young driver stranded in a very dangerous situation where in fact a serious accident involving an 18-wheeler occurred five minutes after we vacated the area.

I am thankful to the men who helped us that long and stressful day.

If I have learned one thing through all this it’s this: listen to the annoying dog, for crying out loud.

And maybe lock your vehicles, too.

Dorothy Wilson lives in Marion, Arkansas, with her husband Chris as they enjoy all of life’s little adventures with their seven children brings… well, except maybe this one. Editor’s Note: I still wonder myself if my own dog tried to warn me when my own truck was being stolen on Thanksgiving night three years ago and I simply ignored him, so mybe listen to that annoying bark? This article originally appeared in the January 2020 edition of the Marion Legder.