{"id":76915,"date":"2019-06-12T19:23:57","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T00:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=76915"},"modified":"2019-06-12T19:24:04","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T00:24:04","slug":"the-view-from-the-balcony-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-view-from-the-balcony-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"The View from the Balcony: Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Saturday night, June 1, 2019, @ 8:00\np.m.<\/em>\nI wasn\u2019t feeling all that spry. Sinus infection. So I went home from The\nBalcony early. (Who am I kidding? 8:00 is late for me most nights.) When I woke\nSunday morning I still didn\u2019t feel well. I showered anyway but hung around home\nin my bathrobe. Didn\u2019t even look outside. You know those days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About\n3:00 p.m. there was a knock on my door. I looked through the peep hole and what\nto my wondering eyes did I see but an officer from the OPD. So I cracked the\ndoor open. The officer asked, \u201cAre you Mr. Weeks?\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d I replied. \u201cWe never\nknow if the address for the license plate matches the current address or not,\u201d\nshe said, then continued. \u201cMr. Weeks, I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ve got some bad news for\nyou.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who\nin their right mind wants a police officer knocking on their door, telling you\nthat they\u2019ve got bad news for you? There was that unsettling pregnant moment of\nsilence in which your entire criminal history flashes through your mind. My brain\nscanned of all the possibilities. Was there a death in my family? What had I done\nto be arrested? I didn\u2019t see a warrant and she didn\u2019t have her gun drawn, nor\nwere the handcuffs out. \u201cTickets,\u201d I thought. \u201cNo, I haven\u2019t had any tickets.\nMajor crimes? I don\u2019t litter and I do recycle. I haven\u2019t torn the tags off my\nmattress or furniture. I did have a Western-styled six-shooter and a sword in\nmy car, but they\u2019re both legal. No, I haven\u2019t responded to all of the\nPublisher\u2019s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes emails and they have become pretty\nthreatening lately, but even this is beyond them \u2013 I hope.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs\nthat your white Altima parked over here?\u201d she asked. \u201cYes, ma\u2019am, it is,\u201d I\nreplied. (I was twice her age but I knew it was wise to call anyone wearing a\nbadge \u201csir\u201d or \u201cma\u2019am.\u201d You gotta get started on the right foot.) \u201cWell,\u201d she\nsaid, \u201cSomeone stole both wheels off the driver\u2019s side of your car.\u201d \u201cWhat?\u201d I\nsaid. \u201cYessir. Somebody took two wheels off your car.\u201d \u201cI think I\u2019d better get\ndressed,\u201d I said. \u201cYessir,\u201d she replied. \u201cThat\u2019d be a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I got dressed and went down to see for myself. She was right. Someone had stolen both wheels from the driver\u2019s side of my car. (Silver lining: At least the thief or thieves had put a block under my car to keep it from being directly on the ground.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The\nofficer told me that another Altima had the same thing done to it a few\nbuildings away from mine on the same night. A third car was hit a few weeks\nprior. \u201cWe\u2019ve got some leads,\u201d the officer said. I commented, \u201cI hope you catch\nwhoever did this, but even if you do, I\u2019m not gonna get my tires back.\u201d She\nnodded in agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Everyone\nI\u2019ve told this story to has said that I must have had some fancy rims on my\ncar. Nope. Just the plain ole ones that came with it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwas fortunate enough to have insurance. I was unfortunate enough to have a\n$500.00 deductible. I was fortunate enough to have roadside service. I was\nunfortunate enough not to have car rental coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday\nmy car was towed to the repair shop. Of course, the wheels had to be ordered.\nIt took until Thursday for the work to be completed and my car returned to me.\nEven with insurance it\u2019s going to cost me around $800.00.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now,\nhere\u2019s the truly important part of my tale\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\nmy insurance agent and I had handled all the business we could on Monday, he\nasked, \u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve heard my news or not.\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d I said, \u201cI haven\u2019t\nheard a thing.\u201d \u201cWell,\u201d he continued, \u201cMy cancer\u2019s back and the doctors say\nI\u2019ve got about a year to live.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly\nit was clear to me that I wasn\u2019t having all that bad of a day after all.\nSometimes it\u2019s all a matter of perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026and that\u2019s the View from The Balcony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday night, June 1, 2019, @ 8:00 p.m. I wasn\u2019t feeling all that spry. Sinus infection. So I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":39753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11902],"tags":[10286,10878],"class_list":["post-76915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-randy-weeks","tag-randy-weeks","tag-the-view-from-the-balcony"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-5-11-View-from-the-Balcony.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}