Swine Flu

I think we were both a little too tense today. It just happens, two people share a single moment that can be a force for a positive or negative release of pent up tension.

As a P.I., you develop other investigator friends.
And when you hit a crossroads in a case.... like when you are asked to do something questionable.... you question someone else you trust about whether it's worth, or legal, doing. In my case, my advisors and friends happen to include investigators and attorneys.

I was on my way to a case this morning talking on my cell to a female Private Investigator friend named Lil. As I grow my business in the day's ahead, Lil will be one of my key operatives. Her favorite work is undercover.

So Lil and I had been playing telephone tag. On my trip to the IRS this a.m. (what a joy to be audited) Lil called. We talked a litle while about our days ahead .

I tend to live in 24 hour increments so we started there... and I noticed she sounded particularly anxious.

"Where are you?" I asked. She said she'd give me the nutshell version.

Lil's boyfriend, a single widow.... we'll call him Ed.... lives with his two girls. My friend Lil, a single mom divorced from a very handsome charming psychopath who tried to posion her, lives with her daughter in separate house.
The two separate houses are a good thing in my opinion.
Because blended families, when not handled right are dynamite.

So while Ed and Lil love each other, they also love their independence. Therefore, they maintain separate residences.

Regardless, Lil tells me breathlessly that she just ran to Costco, bought a case of chicken soup and saltines.... and she's on her way to Ed's front porch... juggling her cell phone on her ear as we speak... to drop the soup and saltines by the front door, ring the bell and run away.

"Why run away?" I ask.

"Ed and the two girls have the swine flu" she whispers. I hear her drop the soup by the door, "I'm ringing the bell now" she rasps...
Then I hear her footsteps and she runs to car, starts it, and says, "I'm back and outa' here."

I couldn't help myself. It was like a dam had burst. I started laughing.
"They ALL have the swine flu?" I asked .
"All three of 'em," Lil said as she started laughing. Before we knew it we were gasping for air.
"Somethings seriously wrong with us." I said, "People are dying from this."
And that only caused us to laugh harder.

"Why don't you blog about this missy?" Lil said, giggling. " Why don't you write about how we tough PI's face stare down rats and walk through piss and deal with bums, metheads and lunatics. Yet you say swine flu and we run like chickens."

And off we went again. Laughing at something not meant to be funny.
It's like... you have to let it out somehow.
Police have shrinks. Who do PI's have? Each other.

We are a rare breed of people. Some of us choose to be highly visible, almost transparent with an eye for the public eye.

Others, like me, are public reluctantly.
I am here with said reluctance, responding to the economic turndown in an attempt to stay in tune with the new media.
I also see this as a means to do some good -- to educate the general public and to add legitimacy to a profession that has been unfairly tarnished in media portrayals and by unethical sleazeball P.I.'s.

And let me add one more note.

I woke up early this am to a call from another friend.
She also had the swine flu.
She is in private practice and has lost two weeks work. Her husband was just laid off. I spent my morning beachwalk on the cell phone plumbing her depths... and mine... to see if there was a financial way out. She was terrfied and I have been there.

So I don't take this stuff lightly.
Swine flu is taking out many people now, it's no laughing matter.
Unless, of course, it becomes an excuse to release the stresss we all feel.
And you have a blog to write about it on.