I have been woefully absent, but do not fret, my friends. I come bearing good stories.

Sunday night was going to be like every Sunday night. The tide was coming up, the people were vacating the beach. All is well with the world.

Then She showed up.

Like I said in my first post in this blog, the beach attracts crazies. Some blend in. Some most certainly do not. She absolutely did not.

Picture it: She walks to the water wearing a full wetsuit (the water is seventy-two degrees, people), a pink skateboarding helmet, and reading glasses. In her hands, she desperately grasps an uninflated pool toy, a mask and snorkel, and one (yes, one) fin. She jumps in the water, and we all groan. No matter what happens, this woman is going to be a royal pain in the ass. The current is pulling south, hard. We watch her until she goes out of sight. A few minutes pass, and M says we should probably take the unit down to make sure she's all right. Everyone agrees, and then the radio crackles to life:

"[Ocean] Beach from [Ocean Beach Area] Dispatch."

Well. Crap. Apparently the fire department is coming.

In half a second, J is on the radio.

"Dispatch, this is [Ocean] Beach, go ahead."

"Fire Department with medics responding Code 3* to report of possible drowning at 123 Generic Street, over."

"Copy, Dispatch, [Ocean] Beach responding Code 3 as well, over."

So off they race, leaving me to man the phones. Now, when some big medical aid happens, all the important guards get a beep on their cell phones/pagers/whatever. So now every big shot in the agency is calling in and I'm going, "No, I DON'T know what happened, but I know no one drowned. No, you don't have to come in, G is coming in."

And with all the hullabaloo, I have never been so glad for someone calm and collected in my life. He calls me up:

"What happened?"

"Not sure, possible 5150**. J and M went Code 3 down to check it out."

"Copy that, I'm one minute out." Click.

Are we under attack? I feel like I'm in the bloody Air Force or something. "One minute out"? Seriously?

Nothing big actually happened. The woman (as suspected) was certifiably insane-- J and M found her drinking water at a surfer's house. He had apparently pulled her from the water at her request. Someone witnessed it, and called it in as a possible drowning. Upon locating her, she began weaving a tale of epic proportions-- she's having chest pain, she has a pacemaker, she had open heart surgery and a triple bypass, and all this. The medics hooked her up to a monitor-- her heart was perfectly fine. She then started ranting about how this one time she wrote a book, and she worked as a nurse in an Alaskan fishery.

Completely fucking insane.

*Code 3= lights and sirens
**5150= mental case