Married to a fugitive......

I know it has been a bit since I have posted anything, but life got in the way for a minute!  So, for this post we are going to jump back to July 2007.  Aaron and I had just returned from our wonderful honeymoon in Playa del Carmen, sun burnt, a little fatter (the food was amazing), and sand in places sand should never go.  Our flight arrived roughly around 8:00 that evening and we were scooped up by his parents and taken back to our apartment.  After dumping our sand filled belongings off at the apartment we decided to jump in the car and run over to his parent's house to pick up our wedding gifts, my bouquet, and other little odds and ends we left scattered their after the wedding.  Due to our exhaustion and the intense rumblin in my tum from Arby's on the way home from the airport we loaded up the car and made a quick exit.  Let me just say that our apartment was roughly a fifteen minute drive from Aaron's parent’s house, and the entire way home I felt a bathroom emergency creeping up on me! (Sorry for the over share, but I have to state the facts here people) As I am sitting on the edge of my seat filled with a little anxiety and queasiness I can see our apartment building two blocks ahead and let out a sigh of somewhat relief knowing I would be rescued from this uncomfortable car ride any minute! Then it happened.....red and blue lights flashing behind us.  My immediate reaction is panic and to ask Aaron every so politely, "honey, whatever could you have done to make this kind officer pull you over? No, no....don't worry I don't have to go to the bathroom at all honey....Of course I can hold it."  As the officer approaches the vehicles he lets us know the reason for him pulling us over two blocks from our house, with not one but two bathrooms, is our plates had expired the previous week. REALLY!!?!? "We were on our honeymoon sir and just got back, we will get them updated first thing tomorrow" was Aaron's reply. Before he could even finish his sentence he shines his flashlight in Aaron's face and rudely asks, "Sir...have you been drinking?"…..  YOU HAVE CAT TO BE KITTEN ME RIGHT MEOW!!!  Aaron told the officer of course he hadn't.  Did that officer believe him....NOPE.  So, the officer asked Aaron if he minded doing some field sobriety tests to prove that he wasn't drinking.   All I can think at this moment is honey, get out this damn car, say those backward ABC's, touch your foot to your face, tap dance a straight line, and get me the hell home!!!  My husband, not angry at this point at all, gently tells the officer, "how about I take a breathalyzer right now and save us all some time?"  I would say this went over well with the officer, but Aaron was in so many words saying, "Hey d-bag I haven't been drinking and you have no reason to harass us!"  The officer, obviously miffed, asks for Aaron's ID and registration before heading back to his cruiser.....oops!  When Aaron and I dumped our stuff at our apartment he also walked off without his wallet.  Great.....this is not looking good for Aaron, his car seat, or the outfit I was wearing.   The officer agrees to let Aaron give him his full name and date of birth and retreats back to his car.  So we sit, and we wait, and we wait and we wait a little longer.  What the heck could possibly be taking so long?  I was fighting back the tears and even the laughter at this point, because this situation was just ridiculous but oh so common for Aaron and I.  Then all of a sudden three other cop cars pull up with their lights on and all we hear is, "PUT YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM...PUT BOTH HANDS OUT THE WINDOW."  OH.......NO.  As the officer approaches with his gun pulled he yanks Aaron out of the car and tells him to put his hands behind his back and cuffs him immediately.  While all of this is going on America's Most Wanted (that is what I will be calling my husband for the remainder of the story) is begging for answers.  What is he being arrested for?  Obviously they have made a huge mistake.  As I am freaking out in the front seat I look over and they have a female officer standing at my door making sure I don't do anything stupid like cry, or ask questions...REALLY!! After patting America's Most Wanted down they sit him cuffed on the curb, remove me from the vehicle and have me get in the police car to answer questions.  How tall is your husband? "Well he is roughly around 6'2" ...6'3" when he is wearing heels", which the officer immediately tells me there is no way, I must be lying, because the officer was 6'2" and there was just no way.  An intelligence response to my answer if you ask me, so I kindly told him to step out of the car, stand Aaron up and he would see I was in fact telling the truth.  How much does your husband weigh? "I think about 215?"  Did he gain about 65 pounds in the past 6 months or so? Hmmmm......nope he definitely didn't put on 65 pounds in 6 months.  They continued to ask questions, as I am rocking back and forth, with visions of my bathroom flashing before my eyes, which I seemed to disappoint them with every answer I gave.  After about 30 minutes of questioning I was finally told that a person with my husband’s first name and date of birth was a wanted felon with a rap sheet a mile long with crimes I don't even want to mention in this blog they are that disgusting.  At one point this person used my husband's last name as an alias which now connects his name and date of birth to this criminal.  It doesn't help that Aaron has the same scar on his hand (I will get to that story later) as this outstanding gentleman, as well as tattoos in the same places, but he was 5’7” 157lbs….obviously not my husband... unfortunately without any forms of identification there was no way of proving that America's Most Wanted was actually not the guy they were looking for.  I pleaded with the police officer to let me run over to our apartment, which was a block away, and grab his driver's license, military ID, as well as his passport.  The cop wasn't budging.  He wanted to take my husband to jail, then we could bail him out and go to court with the proof he wasn't this person.  Let me just tell ya, I ain't too proud to beg, so after a while he finally agreed to let his band of brothers (oh and one sister) escort me into my apartment to retrieve his identification.  By this time two hours had passed with AMW sitting on the curb in cuffs.  After shoving him into the back of one of the police cars we were on our way with a lovely blue and red escort into our apartment complex.  Not one car, not two cars, but four police vehicles with their lights shining bright parked in front of our apartment.  As I am walking up the stairs to our front door followed by three uniforms I see people peeking out their doors at who they think is a criminal living above them. AWESOME! The minute I walk in the door I see Aaron's wallet and hand it over, hoping this whole ordeal would end soon.  Once back downstairs the officer runs America's Most Wanted's information and I can see a light at the end of this dark, damp, smelly tunnel we have found ourselves in.  They finally see my husband is not the guy they think he is.  You can see the disappointment in their eye's that they didn't just make a huge bust on their boring patrol.  Sorry fellas.  As they pull my husband out of the cop car you can just see the fury in his eyes, but he just wants the whole ordeal to be over so he says nothing.  They unlatch his cuffs, and his wrists are bruised and his arms are sore....poor guy went through some hell.  After a few minutes the captain pulls up, parks his car, and approaches us with a, I am so sorry, look on his face.  He shakes Aaron's hand, apologizes and explains to him that because his name was used by this individual as an alias and they share the same date of birth, he will need to go to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and be fingerprinted for every charge this person has and they will give him a letter that he will need to carry around with him in case a situation like this occurs again.  WHAT?  This could happen again? He explained that until this person is caught Aaron's name and date of birth will be attached to this d-bags record until he is caught.  Of course that is how it is!!!  Exhausted from the night's events we finish our conversation with the chief of police and turn to head up the stairs to our apartment.  All of a sudden we hear the officer that originally pulled us over tell us to stop, then ask the chief if he should still ticket us for the expired tags......hahahaha let's just say after what took place that night we were not ticketed.  Finally we were behind closed doors and at this point my bathroom window had been slammed shut and all we wanted to do was go to bed.  Not so fast......those nice gentlemen left our front door open the entire time and our cats were now out on a midnight escapade picking up chicks. Could this night get any more ridiculous?  After about 30 minutes of looking like a lunatic, shaking a bowl of cat food all over god's green earth, yelling "Here KITTY KITTY!" we located the tomcats and headed to bed.  The next day Aaron woke up with bruised wrists and an engrained fear of bar soap.  After telling this preposterous story to others in the following days all we could do was laugh and add it to the list of crazy tales we had already compiled in our short time together. In the following week Aaron spent a half of a day getting fingerprinted and cleared of every charge this pillar of society had against him and left with a stack of letters to have on hand in case he needed them.  I would like to say he never had to hand over that letter, but renting an apartment, changing jobs, and even buying a house were delayed due to this issue of mistaken identity.  We haven't had to whip out that letter in quite awhile thankfully, so we are hopeful this person is now behind bars where he belongs.  But unfortunately that doesn't take away the humiliation and pride damaging night my husband had to go through.  We can laugh about it now, but hey.....it gets a little old when your husband starts sweating profusely, wets himself, and pukes every time he sees a cop, but he definitely makes life an exciting adventure every day!