I shit you not people, the stuff you are about to read really, truly happened. FOR REALZ.

So a couple of weeks ago, there I was sitting with Bean at the dining table while he happily ate his dinner. We were having a good old chat, mostly nonsensical rubbish, but we were having fun. He had a few of his beloved “Nee Nors” (police cars, fire engines, ambulances etc, for those of you not in the know) on the table, it was all good, for once I wasn’t having to resort to bribes of ice cream to get him to eat his food, lovely lovely.

Through a mouthful of peas Bean shouts “Mummy, look! Mummy! LOOK! NEE NORS!”

“Yes dude, I know. They’re great aren’t they?” I say, manoeuvering a particular police car through an assault course of scattered crumbs on the table.

“NO!” he shrieks, manically pointing in the direction behind me, “LOOOOOK! NEEEEE NOOOORRS!”

“Eh?” So I turn around, and there directly outside my house are two mean looking police cars, and as I watch, four uber mean looking policemen get out of the cars. Hmmm, shit’s kicking off, I think.

Now before I go on, the area I live in ain’t the best. There have been a few situations in the few years we’ve lived in this road that have seen people being taken away by the filth. Nothing I’ve been involved with I hasten to add, my only involvement has been surreptitiously peering from behind the curtains trying to work what’s going on, and reporting back to the other half in dramatic whispers.

Anyway. As I watch the mean looking policemen emerge from their mean looking police cars they begin to strap up with MOTHERFUCKING GUNS. Handguns. Machine guns. And bloody shitting grenades. *Um, I think we have a situation here*. I don’t know what the flip is happening, but I quickly grab Bean, who is loving the excitement and I lock the patio doors. Other half keeps watch, and I have a horrible heart-beating-in-mouth thing happening while I try to control Bean as he desperately wriggles around in my arms to see what’s happening.

*Loud banging on front door*

Oh shit, fuck, fuck, fuuuck.

*Answers door*

“Hello madam, we are armed police,” the very polite yet massively scary policemen says holding his machine gun inches from me and my 3 year old.

Gaaah. Yes you fucking are.

“We need to gain access to your back garden, someone has been reported to be in possession of a gun to the rear of you property.”

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

I reply with something completely unintelligible and show them where to go, the four of them nod hellos and march through. Bean is having the time of his bloody life, “Mummy! Look! Policemans!” The policemen even make a comment on his impressive array of Nee Nors left abandoned on the dining table. They tell me to take Bean upstairs and to sit on the floor, “In case any shots go off.” They then stomp through my garden and start aiming their guns over the fence at the house that backs on to mine.

I sit on my bedroom floor, cradling Bean, numbly answering his constant “Why are the policemans in our garden, Mummy?” questions for half an hour, half a shagging hour. Other half is toing and froing upstairs and downstairs, not quite sure what to do. In that time there is lots of muffled shouting, a dog squad turns up, with an Alsation the size of a small horse* which join the officers in my garden, and when I quickly have a peek outside my front bedroom window, I see all my neighbours are looking straight back at me bemused / scared. Oh Christ, they think it’s US that have got a gun.

After what seems a flipping lifetime, we get called down by the officers to say the Nutter With A Gun has been arrested on the other side of the house by another team of police, so they’ll be on their way. My eyes glance down and notice one of them has set down their machine gun on Bean’s BLOODY CLIMBING FRAME. Gaaaaaah. Too much, too too much. Off they go, giving Bean High 5′s as they stomp back through the door. And *poof* they’re gone**.

Still shaking, “Erm, OK darling, shall we finish these fish fingers, then?”

And that my friends, is how the armed police came to tea.

And it was also the exact moment I realized where we live probably isn’t the healthiest place to bring a child up.

I’m not mega friendly with some of my neighbours, so I’m totally certain some of them still think we’re gun-toting badasses. But I shan’t correct them, I like to keep a bit of fear in my back pocket, ya know, just in case.

*Kitty the cat was most fucked off with the dog / horse situation, she sulked for daaays. Of course not bothered by anyone’s safety, just annoyed another animal dare go in her house.

**Not quite sure what actually happened, apparently the Nutter With A Gun had just escaped from prison that morning, and decided to wreak some havoc, just for shits and giggles, you know how it is.

Come on people, let it out, fess up with your neighbour from hell stories!