Death comes to the front yard

So. Did everyone have a Happy Easter? Did the bunny come to your house with delicious treats? Did you accidentally go to the grocery store to get stuff for "Bunny" to "deliver" a week or so too early and then eat the entire bag of malted milk eggs before it was actaully easter? Ha ha. Me neither. Did you have a delicious lunch and spend time with your family? Did some guy die on your front lawn on Saturday?

I bet that that last one totally did not happen to you guys. But it totally DID happen to us. I wish I were kidding.

I was merrily painting up a storm Saturday afternoon - I was on my third of four walls, and determined to finish all four before I took a break, otherwise I would never go back. The house was quiet - Chris was downstairs playing video games, Abby was asleep in the "fort" the girls had made, and Riley was keeping me company while I painted. I heard sirens, but kind of ignored them, as we live next to a major street and also near the fire station. They seemed to be getting closer...yep, hey! That fire truck just parked in front of our house!

Chris yells up to me "Some guy just died in our yard" and I was like "Ha ha, shut up!" because OF COURSE he had to be exaggerating. I went downstairs and saw him going out the front door, so I peeked out and saw that an ambulance had joined the fire truck. I grabbed a coat and followed him out front, telling Riley that under no circumstances was she to come outside. I walked over and stood next to Chris, and would you believe it? There is a guy laying in our side yard (not the main one directly infront of the house thank god, but the one on the other side of our driveway), his crotch rocket motorbike laying about a foot away from Chris' car in our driveway. By the time I got there, the paramedics were shaking their heads and looking at each other like "I think we're done here". I looked at Chris and was like "He looks dead". The paramedics agreed - they got out the white sheet and as they were covering him, I felt like maybe I was either going to cry or barf or maybe both. So I went in the house.

Pretty soon, a policeman came to the door. Riley saw him coming, and was like "Everybody just act natural. We don't want him to think we killed that guy". I was like "Honey - we DIDN'T kill that guy . Also, DO NOT say that in front of the policeman". And then I sent her upstairs just in case.

The police officer was nice - AND HOT. I was of course very suave - when he asked me if I knew what had happened, I said yes I did. After an awkward pause (I didn't know he expected me to tell him what happened - did he not already know?) I said "A guy took a header off his motorcycle...and died?" He agreed, so finally we were on the same page. He told us we weren't going to be able to leave the house for a few hours because they were blocking off the street until the traffic investigator could do his thing. When he left, Chris was like "He was nice" And I said "He smelled really good" and then went into the bathroom to see if I had paint all over my face or if I had looked halfway presentable when talking to Officer Straight White Teeth and Acceptable Amount of Cologne.

Anyway, that was pretty much it. Guy on motorcycle, not wearing helmet (and also sandals with socks - appropriate riding gear? I think not), loses control of bike and (so they think) went over the handlebars headfirst into the car parked in our neighbor's driveway. Died instantly - I hope. Because the weird thing was that none of us heard anything. No screeches or thuds or skidding - the only way Chris knew what was going on was that he saw one of our other neighbors stop in front of our house and start yelling. Chris couldn't see anything and so he went up to our guest bathroom and saw the guy laying in a heap in the yard. By the time he got back downstairs and put his jacket on, the paramedics were there and the guy was definitely dead. No blood - just major head trauma. However, I have no idea how long he was laying there - maybe our neighbor saw it happen, maybe he just saw the guy in the yard.

Anyway, that's the story. I still can't believe it - who does stuff like this happen to? Crazy.