I've been studying to be a detective via an online course (first three lessons free) and it's a lot harder than I thought. I mean, you'd have thought trailing someone would be a breeze. All you have to do is follow them around and take notes on that they do. Simple, right?
It didn't quite work out that way. Three times I tried and three times things just went wrong. Especially the last time. The guy I was following caught on and started following me. I know, it's ridiculous, two people can't follow each other, but that's the way it worked out. I was able to explain and I think he went away satisfied but the incident did give me furiously to think.
Maybe, just maybe, the glamourous life of a famous private detective wasn't quite what I should be doing. I decided I'd look deeper into the course syllabus and see if there were any other things I should be wary of. It seemed to me that there were some glaring inconsistencies in the subject matter. Really, why have a subject on how to escape when you're tied up, but nothing about self-defence so you can avoid being tied up in the first place.
I wondered how I'd go about getting free if I was tied up. I've got small hands and tiny wrists. I was willing to bet that if I did get tied up I'd be able to escape with no problems. My hands should just slide out of the ropes and then I'd be off and running. So I had a theoretical solution but how did I test it? It's a bit hard to tie yourself up.
While I was thinking about this I'd been out in the back yard taking my washing off the line. I could hear the boys next door racketing around in their yard and that's when the idea hit me.
Andy and Tim were pre-teens and still did things like scouts. Scouts learnt things, things that included tying knots. I could get the boys to tie me up and then I could see if I could slip out of the ropes. It wouldn't matter if I couldn't as the boys would be right there and able to untie me.
I rushed my laundry inside and then came back and hopped up onto the fence.
"Andy, Tim, got a moment," I called.
They looked at me for a moment, decided that I wasn't mad at them and they weren't in any trouble, and came wandering over to see what I wanted.
"You two are still scouts, aren't you?" I asked.
"Know anything about tying knots?' I continued when they both nodded.
"Yeah," said Andy with a big smile. "Our Scout-Master is teaching us that right now. We have to practice to get out merit badges."
"Well, how about I give you a chance to do some practice. I'm training to be a private detective. . ." I went on to explain how I wanted them to tie me up so that I could practice escaping.
"You're a girl," Tim pointed out.
"So?" I asked, wondering just how young sex discrimination kicked in.
"Girls can't be detectives," Tim replied, with Andy nodding agreement.
I gave the horrible little chauvinists the evil eye.
"Lots of women are detectives," I pointed out. "For a detective it's the brain that counts."
The look on their young faces seemed to indicate that they didn't think that girls had brains.
"Well, you're old," admitted Tim, "but are you old enough to be a detective. I saw Columbo on TV and he's about a hundred years old."
How nice. I didn't look like I was a hundred years old, just old. If I didn't need their help I'd kick the little turds all around their yard.
"OK, it's all right," I said cagily. "I quite understand that you don't really know how to tie a proper knot yet. I'll get someone else to help me."
"Hey, we can do it, can't we, Tim," Andy promptly stated, being quickly backed up by Tim. "Ah, you do have some rope we can use?"
Well, that was a kicker. Rather hard to be tied up without rope.
"No worries," said Andy. "We've got some."
They came racing around with a small coil of rope. Actually, it was more of a decent cord than a rope. How thick does a rope have to be to be considered rope? It doesn't matter as this cord wasn't that thick.
