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.
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.
Yes, it’s official, I AM a PI Plant Murdering Mom…It NEVER fails…I get a plant as a gift (or worse, I BUY the plant myself) and I carefully find a place of honor for said plant amongst the clutter of my home. Flash a case or two forward in time and as I am frantically going through a pile of bills or worse-organizing the kitchen–there it is, a speck of green, peeking out at me from under the rubble of my kitchen cluttered (because I don’t have a junk drawer) life–I follow the speck uncovering a sad sad leaf that has fallen from its plant–IF you can call the gnarled brown stem of a thing poking out of the pot of cracked parched dirt a plant at all….This happens EVERY time we get a new out of town case and the mad dash to tie up loose ends before leaving overtakes me. I need a wife–circa 1950–who enjoys cleaning a house and doing laundry. And a husband. Preferably with a green damn thumb, more power tools than I happen to own AND he knows how to use them! Now on to packing for this case….see you all soon, PI Moms!
Whenever somebody finds out that one of us is a PI, the first thing they do is start asking questions. What do you do? What’s it like? Have you ever followed anyone? How can I tell if my husband is cheating on me? How can I protect my kids online?
That’s why we’ve decided to pool our collective resources as private investigators and moms on this website. Start sending your questions to us at help@askpimoms.com, and we’ll start posting answers!
Everything’s open to discussion, too. If you think you have something to add to one of our responses, by all means feel free! We’re looking forward to hearing from all of you!
