A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School

As I think I have mentioned, funny things happen to me. For no particular reason.  I guess it runs in the family and sometimes there are even stranger coincidences.

My cousin told me this story when I saw him recently:

Back when Clinton was in office he came to visit the elementary school my children were attending.  It was my day to pick them up and when I arrived at the school it was all on lock down as the President was still there.  I drove around and around and couldn't find a place to park.  Then I remembered that I could drive over to the neighborhood next to the school and park there and walk back to the school. After I parked on the street nearest to the school, I had to walk through a little section of woods to get to the building.  As I was walking through the woods I heard the unmistakable sound of a growling dog. I stopped walking as I didn't want to be attacked by this mean sounding dog and suddenly there appeared several armed men wearing bulletproof vests and looking very official.  They demanded that I accompany them back to their command unit where I had to explain that I was only there to pick up my kids. I had also just come from work and was wearing my usual suit and tie and had my work issued ID on me, but that didn't seem to impress them.  After several calls to confirm that I was who I said I was, they finally let me go, but my family was embarrassed and harassed me about it for days. Needless to say, I did NOT get to meet the President.

And here is my story:

When Clinton was in office I was selling real estate.  One day I received a call from the local high school asking that I come by the school and pick up one of my "For Sale" signs that some of their students had apparently appropriated from one of my listings and decided to place in front of the school.  They also requested that I come to get it right away as the President was visiting the school that day (POTUS seems to have visited a lot of schools back then). My office was about 40 minutes away and by the time I arrived at the school, there were lots of guys hanging around with earplugs in their ears.  They stopped me at the entrance to the school and asked me to explain why I was there. Did I have a child attending the school? No, I explained, I was there to retrieve a "For Sale" sign.  They looked at me like I had totally gone over the edge and I had to explain the whole story of how the school had called me to come and get the sign.  I was escorted to the office by one of the agents who then escorted the school secretary and myself to a closet where they had stashed my sign.  I had to lug it out to my car by myself. And, needless to say, I did NOT get to meet the President (either). 

I guess it is lucky for us that the Secret Service did not connect us as I'm sure we would have been investigated for some kind of conspiracy.