The local plod
The local police in the little town where I grew up were notorious for overreacting to stuff. In fairness, this was probably because nothing ever happened, so they had to take their excitement where they could get it. As an example, two women once had a bit of a barney in the toilets of the local workingmen’s club during the Christmas Eve party, and two panda cars and a van turned up. This resulted in some confusion as the incident had passed by this point, the offenders had been chucked out, and 12 policemen suddenly burst through the doors of the function room to find nothing more sinister going on than a load of pissed people trying to do the Locomotion.

The weirdest occasion that I personally experienced though was partly my Mum’s fault. When I was about 11, we had an argument one night. Nothing serious – I can’t even remember what it was about. It was enough, however, for her to decide when she came back the next day at 6pm and I wasn’t already home, that I must have run away. She panicked as I was always home before her, unless I’d specifically told her to expect otherwise.

The local bobbies were there like a shot, swiftly followed by a plain clothes senior officer, who sat with my mum, got some recent photos to give to a WPC who dashed off with them to photocopy, etc. An alert was put out and a patrol car was even sent out to the nearest service station to see if I was trying to hitch-hike to London. Within half an hour, they were probably starting to think about getting the helicopter out from Birmingham...

Which is when my mum looked out of the back window and noticed that I was sat on the bench in the garden doing my homework. I'd forgotten my keys.

To be fair, they were very nice about the whole thing, and I think it probably made their afternoon. Mum sent a cake to the police station the next weekend.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 16 May 2013, 17:22, Reply)