Owls and Orchids

This is a true story, only the names have been changed to protect…. the innocent!

image from http://www.lheuredelasortie.com

Many years ago, our heroine had been, for a relatively brief time, an officer in the Queensland Police Force, back in the days when it was called a “Force” to represent that it was a force against the undesirable element in out society. In the heady rearrangement of brain cells created by the ‘love bug’ she had been persuaded to leave her dream job to marry and eventually start a family.

It was at this juncture that the family relocated to a relatively sleepy country town called Toowoomba, in the Downs area of Queensland. Her husband remained in the police department and she wrestled with motherhood and the boredom of a country town, being known as a policeman’s wife.  In desperation she became a member of the local YMCA gym, eventually becoming something of a gym junkie, there being little else to do in town.

image from whatshotwhatstrendingnow.com –

This was in the days of Jane Fonda’s highly publicized  exercise videos and gym wear. I can attest to the fact that those slinky, shiny g string lycra leotards and form-fitting leggings were extremely comfortable to exercise in! They didn’t look too bad then either.

So here we have the bored housewife at the gym on a cold winter’s morning, music blaring and fully engrossed in the class.  Suddenly there is a cacophony of sound coming from across the spare paddock, near the shopping centre. The alarm from the local bank was blaring away.

As they all gathered at the windows three men, dressed in ‘great coats’, balaclava and carrying what appeared to be heavy bags cam running across the paddock towards the road running past the gym.

Excitement! Bank robbers – fleeing the scene – escaping! Without another thought she ran out of the gym and up the street towards where the robbers had crossed the road. There was a vague, not quite fully formed idea in mind that she would check where they had disappeared into a driveway and let the police know where they had gone. Perhaps she might see the getaway car and let them know that too,

Imagine the scene. A young, relatively scantily clad woman is running up a street, dressed in gym gear, in the middle of a cold Toowoomba winter’s day, after three armed bank robbers. (She didn’t know they were armed at that point). Heading into the driveway they had disappeared along she carefully trotted down the concrete drive to see if she could catch a glimpse of them.

There at the edge of the driveway was a black object. Getting closer she realise it was a sawn off shotgun. Interesting! Very interesting! No sign of the offenders but a car had its engine roaring in the next street and disappearing at a great rate out-of-town. (She peeked, and saw a dark blue Ford heading away – FAST).

Heading back to the gym, after all she wasn’t carrying a phone,

she met a taxi slowly coming up the street so headed towards him.

image from http://www.dreamstime.com

After telling him what she had seen and where the gun was she asked him to let the police know. She could hear the police channel on the radio so she knew that he could relay the message. Instead she was met with a pair of eyes as round as teacups and a mouth hanging open wide enough to catch blow flies!

She had to repeat the message three times before she saw a glimmer of understanding and by that time the police had arrived and she went through her story with them.  To be fair, apart from grinning at the sight she presented they got the information out to the other  cars.

Getting back to they gym, as odd as it may sound, the gym class resumed as if nothing had happened. Nothing got in the way of the aerobics class!

However, not everyone was able to approach the incident with the insouciance  of our accidental heroine. The gym owner had called the local newspaper to relate the story and they had a reporter waiting in reception to interview ‘their star’! This was disastrous.

Being a police officers wife, it is against all policy to be interviewed by the press, without getting clearance from Headquarters. This of course, failed to even consider how her husband would react when he found out, or the rest of his fellow officers.

Fortunately, the reporter was a ‘good scout’ and hearing the problem, reported the story without identifying the heroine. Except – everyone at the police station had already been given a detailed description of the lady in the ‘sexy leotard’ by the officers she had spoken to. He couldn’t get away from it, neither could she.

The bank robbers were caught a few hours later, thanks to her information. The staff at the police station twitted our erstwhile detective for weeks. It was a boring town, very little exciting happened there! Promises of “Never Again” were extracted and life returned to its previous humdrum pattern.

image from lillieleonardi.com

“Sometimes standing against evil is more important than defeating it. The greatest heroes stand because it is right to do so, not because they believe they will walk away with their lives. Such selfless courage is a victory in itself.”   ― N.D. Wilson, Dandelion Fire

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(But I still have the article which appeared in the newspaper to remind me of a little excitement on cold winters morning in Toowoomba!)