And he stayed married to me after that...

Some people question whether these situations I describe are real. I tell you that I tell stories better than I make them up. After this story, maybe people will get an idea as to why weird things happen to me. I am weird to the core and it follows me. This one is to show people also what an understanding man the hub is. This is lengthy but worth it. It was 1996 and we had just been married in May. On an early August weekend, we went to my hometown to visit family and so I could attend a bridal shower. The Summer Olympics in Atlanta were in full swing and they had recently had the bombing in Centennial Olympic Park. Law enforcement was being called in from all over the country to monitor the different events for any suspicious activity. While we were in town, we had a somewhat last minute surprise visit from my cousin L and her husband, who came from New England. My aunt, uncle and cousin came from VA to meet up and have a mini family reunion. Why did I mention the Olympics? Here we go. My cousin's husband, P, was a state trooper but had been in the Marines for several years. He was one of those intimidating, stern looking Marines who stood outside of Marine 1 as it landed on the White House grounds with the Prez inside. Kind of a tough guy. He owned, trained and worked alongside officer dogs. He had been called, because of his unique skills, to monitor the Olympic soccer games with his highly trained and scary dogs. So, the family road trip included them in an old school Suburban, their little girl and the two dogs in crates. As soon as they pulled into the driveway, P got out and kind of went over the dog rules with us. Basically, don't get near them unless you are happy with one arm kind of rules. They were shepherd types and extremely intimidating. My cousin, her husband and the their girl could lay all over them, but none of us....which we were more than fine with. Any time they got rowdy, P would bark some German at them at they would settle down. My other cousin S, who showed up in the other car full of relatives, was hardcore into being a military/law enforcement man. It was his ultimate dream, though at the time he needed to do a bit more growing up before he did that. He since has gone on to be a border patrol agent and now is currently a DC officer, but I digress. The dogs and family had been cooped up for a long time. P got them out for a bit and let them walk around and smell everything. We, of course, were terrified to move so we froze until he put them back into their crates. Mom and I had made a few snacks in anticipation of their arrival and then had to skedaddle out to the shower for a bit. When we returned, we came through the garage and did not know what was about to take place in our backyard. Let me show again the key players:

Unbeknownst to the civilian family members, police dogs need training every day to keep them sharp, scary and up on their German. P wanted to run the dogs and drill them a little bit so they would be fresh when they got to the ATL. My mom was inside getting lunch stuff together. I had just changed out of "Shower clothes" and was ready to go outside and relax when my brother walked in, grabbed a hot dog and said, "Things are about to get really interesting.". He then walked back out, shaking his head. On the walk outside of the back door, there were several lawn chairs set up to look out onto the backyard. Cousin L told us that her husband was readying the dogs, so it was best to just sit down and be still. Out of the corner of my eye, I see this coming from the driveway:

My cousin S has decked himself out in a bite suit, VOLUNTARILY, to be part of the training exercise. That is when my dad sent me next door to warn our neighbor. Her name was Grace, an 80 year old firecracker of a woman who we named our own Grace after. Dad said, "You might just want to warn Grace what is about to happen so she won't run over here and get hurt.". Let me give just a little diagram of the whole scene:

I ran over through the hedge and saw Grace, frozen in her backyard looking like this:

She said, "What is that thing and why are those animals rabid?", referring to my cousin in the bite suit and the dogs, who were snarling at the sight of the bite suit. I explained to her, as best I could in the time I had, what was going on and that she would be best to stay where she was. She already had the hose in hand, poised and ready to turn it on those dogs(she was a cat person). She and I stood together, per my Father's instructions, when the drills began. P held the dogs by their leads and my cousin starts running across the yard. Snarling and foaming at the mouth, P yells something in German and lets them go. The next thing we see is them run, jump up in the air and take my cousin DOWN! Grace gasped an, "Oh my!" out, decided she'd had enough and went inside. I snuck back a little closer to watch more drills. My parents live in a neat older neighborhood with lots of sidewalks and lots of walkers. This was before they had a fence so you could see, depending on your angle, what was going on in our backyard. P then ran over , barked a few sentences in German, pulled the dogs off and took them to another part of the yard. S in the bite suit then went and acted out another strange scenario, popped out of a hedge and started running again....looking like a rabid yeti. I heard some rustling and turned to find our yard had attracted a gaggle of walkers, mouths wide open in horror at the spectacle playing out in front of them. There was no way to explain to all of them exactly what was going on. They couldn't hear me what with all the German and screaming and snarling and barking. So I just hoped they'd figure it out for themselves. Either that or my parents were sure going to get a reputation. When P felt that the dogs had worked enough, S got out of the bite suit, barely avoiding heat stroke in the brutal August afternoon. All of my immediate family members were standing there, frozen and trying to process what we had just seen. My brother, who had been mesmerized enough to freeze mid hot dog, turned to my new husband, shook his hand, said, "Welcome to the family," popped the remaining bite of hot dog in his mouth and went inside. That is why weird follows me everywhere I go....and I am so blessed to have a husband brave enough to take that ride with me.