Everything Comes to a Halt

Did you ever watch that short-lived sitcom It's Like, You Know...? I don't remember a lot about the show, except that Jennifer Grey starred as herself. It revolved around her neighbor(s) and their friends, and her attempts at putting her career back on track.

I watched the show a few times when it first came on, but it was pretty boring. Apparently everyone else agreed. The show ended after 19 episodes. (It began as a late-season entry and ended its run early the next season before all the taped episodes aired.)

Still, there was one episode I watched that I remember even today. It was titled The Getaway, and it was about how everything in L.A. shut down when a high-speed chase was being televised because everyone was glued to their televisions. I remember thinking how boring that must be, to sit and watch a high-speed chase on TV. I remember when O. J. Simpson led police on a slow-speed chase through L.A. I wasn't that enraptured by it.

But now I see it differently. Since we've lived in the Dallas area, I can think of two times recently where we sat and watched a police chase on TV. The first was last July when Dallas police followed an 18-wheeler in a slow-speed chase through South Dallas and beyond. We watched that for about 3 hours, unable to pull ourselves away for fear that we might miss something.

The second time was this afternoon. Local news stations broke into afternoon programming to air a high-speed chase through the Mesquite/Garland/North Dallas area that began around 2:00 p.m. We were transfixed as we watched the black SUV race along roads and highways we were familiar with. Then the driver took 635 East to 75 North up into McKinney. Then it turned around and headed south again. At one point, after the SUV had once again exited 75, police threw a spike strip out. Contact! The strip bounced along the road after the SUV drove over it. (Amazingly, none of the police cars drove over it.) The previously semi-conscientious driver, who had worn his seatbelt and occasionally used his turn signal throughout the chase, had removed his seatbelt. We were waiting for the jump. It was all over shortly before 3:30. The runaway driver got caught in traffic and 12 police vehicles of various styles and agencies boxed him in. They stood, guns drawn, and pulled the driver from the SUV, wrestling him to the ground. He fought hard as they worked to get him cuffed. Then he was sitting on the ground - hands behind his back, long-sleeve white shirt untucked from dark pants, grey hair mussed - while the police stood around conferring, looking at various clipboards.

Then local programming came back on. I guess I'll have to wait until the news tonight before I find out how the incident began. Apparently the driver had committed some felony, otherwise the police would have given up chase because of the heavily populated area of it.

Now I can get back to cleaning the kitchen, doing some laundry, and getting ready to cook supper.