Michelle and I were working an undercover sting this week together. I was the woman scorned. I was going out of town for spring break. Therefore, my husband would be all alone for five days. We met with a guy who posted an ad on Craigslist for investigative services. When we met the “PI” he told us his story of how he came to be a PI. He had been out of work for over a year and friends told him he was good at catching cheaters.
I made contact in advance with the “PI” to set up a time to meet. He seemed nice enough on the phone, but we can never tell. Once we met him we knew he really was just a nice guy. We had mixed emotions about the sting because we do try to catch the “bad guys”. This case was different because he was not a true “bad guy”. Sitting in front of us during the sting was a guy just trying to make a living in a tough time.
As moms we are always watching out for our cubs by keeping danger away. This was not one of those cases. Luckily, the ending appears to have turned lemons into lemonade. The funny thing was our subject had actually applied for a job with our firm several weeks ago. This could have turned out to be the strangest job interview ever for him if he ends up actually becoming a licensed PI.
I am not sure if he will be working with us in the future or not, but it reminded us that not all of our cases involve “bad guys”. Sometimes it really is just a nice guy in the wrong circumstances.
“Where’s the hammer??” I called out to no one in particular…I continued to rummage through the refrigerator after depositing the container of petrified pasta in the sink. I walked back to the pasta and poked it with a fork. Gee I LOVE Clean the Refrigerator Day…I rummaged in the drawer for a bigger fork…or better, a mallet.
Bam Bam BAM!
I pounded on the petrified pasta to no avail–it remained a uniform solid brick. Better NOT put this in the garbage disposal…Rinnnng!
“Hello?” it was one of my fellow PI Moms checking in about an upcoming undercover sting involving a social networking site.
“Ready for tomorrow?”
“Yeah–got the the purse cam ready to go…did you secure the parking place?”
“Done.”
“See you in a few–when I have properly disposed of the Petrified Pasta….”
“Never a dull moment at your house!”
Sigh…
“
Don’t you love it when you plan and plan and things just don’t go as they should? Working as a PI Mom we are always developing Plan A, B and sometimes C for the undercover operations we conduct. It can be the difference between the success and failure of the case. An investigator cannot always plan for what a subject will do. We obtain information in our investigations that may alter the course of the entire operation.
Working as a Private Investigator has made me realize I need to do this in my personal life much more than I do. I am an adjunct professor at several universities in their criminal justice/legal department. With the economy the way it is many schools are cutting classes due to lower enrollments. I thought I had my schedule all worked out to coincide with cases at Butler and Associates. Suddenly, the university schedules have changed requiring a modification in my entire life’s schedule. Uggh is all I can say right now!
Many moms can relate to the sudden schedule changes whether it is caused by work or a sick child. It can be difficult for moms to quickly adapt because they get use to a routine that works with their family. The thing about the PI Moms is we have been trained to adapt to sudden changes in a case. We are prepared! It may not go as smoothly in our personal lives; therefore the need for PI Moms to take our work home and have a Plan A, B and C for anything that crosses our families path.
“You know what you are mom? You’re a Bodhisattva!” said the boy-child.
You know–the deity with all those arms? This is what my son called me because I was making breakfast, helping him with homework, making lunches, washing dishes, getting his sister out of bed AND reviewing a case on the phone with another PI Mom ALL at the same time.
So what is this PI Mom juggling now with her many Many arms? Well, there’s summer camp applications, working a pedophile case with the beautiful PI Mom Denise, 4 feature films and one documentary in varying stages of completion, getting the daughter’s braces off without taking out the horrific excuse of a McDental customer service challenged orthodontist, reminder calls to my son to do his homework (AND this means NOT in your head but ACTUALLY writing it down–on paper–!) and Please–PLEASE study for the math test, prepare for decoy interviews with the lovely PI Mom Charmagne, prep for an acting class with PI Mom Ami (taught by the AMAZING Rob Nilsson, UFC Self Defense Training with Gil and all the PI Moms, raise $5,000,000 for a feature film, meet with gallery owners Dorian and Jeffrey in LA on Sunday, drive with Nana Chris to Reno later that day, fly back to SF on Monday, book flights for Kansas City and Minneapolis Film Festivals for screenings of IMBUED–starring the iconic Stacy Keach (I play his high maintenance 4th wife!), clean my house, find a boyfriend….what are your next couple of days like??? Thank goodness I’m a glass is always half full life is beautiful PollyAnna PI Mom! Pessimism is NOT an option.
And that means Shakespeare Camp…ahh, I recall 2 years ago when my son, who had agreed to go to camp because he would learn stage combat, came home very upset…
“MOOOOOM!!! I DON’T wanna be King Lear!!!!!”
Said the boy child…
“He has too Many WORDS!!! I WANT to be the Fool!!!”
“Son, it is an honor to be chosen for the part of King Lear. Sir Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson…”
“And Ian McKellan?”
“Er, uh, Yeah–he’s good too–I have heard he is good…” Where on earth did he hear about Ian McKellan???
And so it went. He eventually came around and did a killer performance of King Lear and received applause for his 9 year old self during his death scene.
“Wow. He really seemed ‘old’” said one parent.
Yeah, old as a 9 year old can be when portraying an 80+ year old monarch that gave it all away to his ungrateful children. Still, he was pretty damn convincing. Wonder what adventures await at Shakespeare Camp this year. Gotta be better than Math Camp. What adventures of children and the Bard can you share??? How about you, PI Moms? Any summer camp apply before they are born or risk not getting in stories to share? Maybe Butler & Associates and the PI Moms need to start our own PI Summer Camp! Teach our young ones how to be proper private investigators the better to spy on us…sort of a spy kids camp. What do you think?
So my 15-year old son has decided to finally ask out the girl he likes. Thus begins a new adventure of discussing with my son all of the rules and etiquette of dating. Of course, this comes with grunts, groans and the “Oh please mom” comments. While we are having this discussion, I am pulled to yet another adventure—potty training. My 3-year old runs towards me clutching and yelling that he needs to use the bathroom NOW. Typical in the early stages is that we do not make it to the bathroom on time. Your child dating and going through potty training are huge milestones in both a parent’s and child’s life. I have been faced with tricky cases before, so this should be no different, right? I can handle it! Think up a plan and expect the unexpected. I am not sure I am ready for these particular adventures to begin, because my babies are growing up so fast. Luckily, I have another boy still in the baby stage. Gotta love the journey you take with your kids!
Arrived home from a case in LA after 1am only to rise Rise RISE at dawn to get the daughter off to school for AP biology lab…she IS my hero. Though exhaustion is now settling in to the point of droopy eyelids and I don’t mean droopy from botox I mean droopy from 3 kinds of tired–and the drive back can be long and long with not much to listen to but Dr. Drew, Christian radio and plenty of music from bad 80’s hair metal bands….the kind with the names one always tends to forget…”Play Freebird!” woohooo! sigh…early to bed for this PI Mamma.
You’re asking how I’m doing. Let’s see what happened to me last week. I am probably confusing the order of things, but here’s in a nutshell: I met my ex in court over child support, got a speeding ticket, wiped about a hundred puddles in the kitchen (thank Heavens for little puppies!), got my 20-week sonogram that went great, got a cell phone ticket, got a call from Kaiser saying the sonogram wasn’t THAT great and I needed to take some blood tests, signed a contract with a large company for some SFO-level security camera system, took my son to watch a movie, moved my husband’s office within Walnut Creek, made a reservation at Monte Carlo for a security convention, bought some baby stuff (here’s my stress relief!), did I mention got my picture printed in PEOPLE magazine, which led me to adding a few new friends on Facebook, cut my own hair (have an appointment for tomorrow to fix it), successfully took a Chapter 4 test (yes, I am still a student), FINALLY got blood test results back and they are great, convinced my cousins to come visit me from Moscow in a week or two, ate about a ton of ice-cream and even more pizza (that baby must really be a pizza lover), finally saw my BFF Marcia Juell and we decided to have a garage sale this Saturday (that one is going to be r e a l f u n), and I am sure I am forgetting something important on top of that. Please note, what was happening at Butler’s office last week is completely classified and confidential, so I don’t have the liberty of discussing it here at this time… may be next time =) So, the conclusion: I am doing great! I am happy, we’re all healthy, my cousins are coming, our puppy is growing (less puddles, but they are bigger, ha), my kid is still a kid, and my husband still can’t live without me!!! What else could I wish for… probably World Peace… and more pizza. Talking about that, I got 4 bags of great food at the Russian food store in Concord today, it’s time to go dig in!!! Yay!
One of the funniest things about all this publicity the PI Moms at Butler & Associates have been getting lately is that now all of the sudden half the women I know are telling me they want to become PIs. It’s like the new midlife crisis. Career’s getting boring, marriage isn’t working out, so f*** it, let’s go be spies.
I’m all for following your dreams, but I have to say, becoming a PI may not be the answer. For one thing, despite how excited they are about it, most people have no idea what PIs really do. They think of James Bond or the Thomas Crown Affair and think: We’re going to solve a case, and we’re going to do it in heels, and we’re going to be glamorous and wonderful and successful. But sitting in a car all day on surveillance and peeing in a Starbucks cup is not my idea of glamor.
Then there’s the danger aspect. A lot of women like to play with the idea of danger, but when it becomes a reality, a lot of really difficult questions come up. Are you putting your family at risk? Are you putting yourself at risk? How is what you’re doing going to affect your children?
I’ve lost a lot of friends because of what I do. I tried to hide it from people for a long time. My mom doesn’t like it, no matter how much I try to assure her that I’m behind the scenes and that the risks I take are very calculated. My dad calls me Dick Tracey every time he sees me, but I don’t think he wants to know what I really do either.
Compared to a conventional 9 to 5, being a PI is very exciting. It’s unconventional, it’s unexpected. We do something new almost every day. But there are a lot of drawbacks to the job, and it’s definitely not for everyone. If you find yourself really wanting to go out and do something crazy, I’d say by all means go for it–but make sure you’re not giving anything up that you may want to get back. A marriage, for example, or time with your kids.
At the end of the day, I just want my kids to be proud of me.
