Wanted: Dead or Alive?

OK, so I'm talking to a dear friend about strange topics which happens to be my forte and somehow I was reminded of an odd incident that happened to me concerning the above illustrated badge.
My son, bless his heart, had a variety of problems growing up including bi-polar disorder, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder and a touch of paranoia. Naturally, he was an interesting little fellow to say the least and my heart goes out to all the parents who have dealt and are dealing with these terrible disorders. For the record, I wish to report that he did make it to adulthood and now has two children of his own. He can and does joke about his early days and say such things as "But that was then. I'm all better now!" using that same crazy way of saying it and that weird look in his eyes as the comics use to portray criminally insane people. He's a good sport and I love him dearly.

Anyhow, he was always quite sure that the police, the sheriff's department, the DEA, the FBI, the NSA, the IRS, the KGB, Scotland Yard, the Surete, the Israeli Moussad or some other top secret entity was watching our house, just waiting to cart him off into the night never to be seen again. Why? I have no idea other than the fact that during his teenage years, he was indulging a little reefer to go along with his meds which is apparently not a good combination. So he was always telling me about strange vans and cars stalking the neighborhood using their top-secret spy equipment to look through our walls and see us in the shower, etc. Most of the time, I listened patiently to these reports and tried to debunk them as much as possible to alleviate his fears.

So one day he hisses at me from the front door and shows me a plain white van sitting across the street in the post office parking lot. He tells me that the van has been sitting there for three days and that he's quite sure that there are FBI agents in the van watching the house. Naturally, I explain that the parking lot is shady, it was very hot outside and the person or persons in the van was probably just sitting in the shade, taking a break and reading their mail. Besides, I told him in all seriousness, the driver looks like a lady and is probably the owner of a flower shop who gets a lot of mail or something. He was unconvinced.

A couple of days later, I was sitting at my typewriter, banging on the keys when I looked up and noticed a strange lady, dressed to the nines, in my yard, talking to my youngest daughter who looked quite frightened. I walked out on the front porch and caught the woman's attention and asked if I could help her.

She strode boldly across my yard and flipped out a badge.

FBI.

She gestured to the same white van across the street and told me that she had been surveilling the house for several days.

After I regained my breath and picked my stomach up off the porch, I invited her inside to talk.

Turned out a friend of mine had put in for a federal position that required a secret clearance and had given me as a reference.

I learned three important things that day:

1.) If my son says that UFO's are landing in the backyard, then it's probably time to run.

2.) We spend a lot of federal tax dollars sending FBI agents out on missions that could better be done IMHO by a couple of clerks with a good computer system.

3.) Female FBI agents do indeed look like Dana Scully.