We Got It Back

An eventful day!

In the morning, Captain Adorable and I went grocery shopping. Then, because he was motivated by a promised lollipop, we stopped by a diagnostic lab and had his blood drawn for some tests. I was so proud of him! He knew exactly what was going to happen, having seen it happen to me several times already. However, I could feel he was nervous. Still, he sat in my lap quietly. His arm was not tense (and the phlebotomist was kind enough to put the tourniquet over the sleeve of his tee shirt--the little things are so important) as he held it out while the blood came out. He did cry (tears rolled down his cheeks) but not for too long, and cheered up almost immediately after the needle was removed. The phlebotomist exclaimed that "someone stole [her] kid's bandaids" and went off to get him one. By the time she came back with a blue one, he was ready to ask her who had stolen her bandaids. As soon as we were out of there, I raced to the grocery store, planning to buy the biggest lollipop I could find for my brave little darling. Well, he told me he didn't want a big one because it would take years and years to finish! (I bought him a bag of lollipops, because they don't sell them singly, and I gave him the first of two immediately after completing the purchase.)

After lunch (which Capt. Adorable did not eat since he was busy with lollipop number two), we got a call from Capt. Obvious, who had just arrived at the marina to take some measurements on the boat. Our dinghy was missing! I saw it yesterday at about 3:30, perfectly fine on the mooring. But today it was gone. Yes, he had tied it on tight!

I called the police and was transfered 3 or 4 times, until finally I spoke with Corporal Lastname at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). He asked me all the obvious questions and assured me that he'd look for it. Meanwhile, Capt. Obvious was out on the boat looking for the dinghy here in our creek. Corporal Lastname asked that if we found it, I call him. Not so long after our conversation, Capt. Obvious called me to say that he had found it! I called DNR and left a message, but we were going to go get our dinghy back! I carried the sleeping (can you say sugar crash?) little boy out to the car and then the phone rang. Corporal Lastname asked me to wait for him. He met us at our house and he followed us over to the place where Capt. Obvious was waiting in the boat, right by where the dinghy could be seen on shore.

We walked out the beach and I untied the dinghy and pulled it to where Corporal Lastname was standing (he couldn't go all the way to the dinghy because he was wering his "court shoes." He examined the dinghy, saw the name and phone number written on the transom, just as I had reported, and compared the hull ID number to that written on our bill of sale and agreed that it was ours. I pushed it out to Capt. Obvious, who was on our boat, he caught it and towed it home (just around the corner). Whoever stole the dinghy had left it with a set of plastic and aluminum oars, a pair of binoculars, fire extinguisher pins, and a huge mess from the stuff that comes out of a fire extinguisher. (There was a slight bit of damage to the dinghy also...but nothing much.) The marina closest to the beach where our dinghy was found discovered their fire extinguishers were missing. Corporal Lastname said we could keep the items found in the dinghy.

Capt. Adorable and I went down to our marina to meet Capt. Obvious and take the dinghy home. It was a mess but otherwise fine. As soon as we got home I checked the answering machine and there were two messages from Corporal Lastname, asking that we return the items found aboard the dinghy because they were stolen from the other marina. Of course we were fine with him coming by and collecting the things found in the dinghy.

I think it was teenagers. Anyhow, I guess we'll have to do something different. Not sure if we have to deflate it and bring it aboard every time we go out or if we can leave it during the day but not at night or what.