Jail? For Lack of a Receipt?

I received a strange phone call today. The voice asked if it was me. I said, "Yes." He said he was a DA. I said, "Yes, sir," and sat down completely dumbfounded and expecting nothing good out of this conversation. I knew it was either a death or a friend who was in trouble and I was about to be asked about his/her pasttimes. Instead, he asked where I bought my Schlitterbahn Waterpark season tickets.

I told him I bought them at the grocery store in the next town that is half an hour away. He said, "I think you may be the victim of fraud and I want you to know that you are a victim here not a suspect." I said, "Yes, I understand that. Was somebody selling passes that aren't good?" "Yes," he answered. "Are my season passes still good?" He continued, "You gave the clerk at Schlitterbahn some vouchers. The clerk did not know that your vouchers were no good and validated them. They are not good. Where did you buy them?" Again I said, "HEB (our local grocery store). He said, "Again, I want you to know that you are a victim here and not a suspect." I said, "I know I am not, I bought them at the store in the next town because this town was sold out." He said, "Know that you are a victim, not a suspect and that you are a victim of fraud. Now, where did you buy those tickets?" Again I said, "HEB." He said, "They do not sell that kind of card there."
I asked my daughter, "Did we not go to HEB and buy the Schlitterbahn season passes there and pay for them at the office?" She said, "Yes." I said, "I thought so," and told him we bought them at that store. I remember the convincing arguments I had to make to my husband in order to get those season passes: promises of going everyday, quality family time and toning my body into bikini shape. Now those tickets were as worthless as those intentions turned out to be.

He said, "The voucher you turned in cannot be bought at that store. They do not sell those there." I said, "I know they are because we drove half an hour to get them and we dug into our bank account to get them." Then, I began to question my memory. I said, "Hold on," and asked my family again if we went all the way to the next town to buy those season passes or was my mind gone. Could it be that my synapsis were not synapping? My family assured me that I was not crazy and we did buy them at HEB. I said, "I thought so," and told him that my family remembered the long drive to the neighboring town to get those season passes. Again, the detective told me to remember that I was a victim here not a suspect. Then I began to understand why he kept repeating that stupid phrase. He didn't believe a word I said.

I told him the truth and said, "Look, we drove to the next town cause this town's HEB was sold out. We bought the tickets at the office of the grocery store and we are on video buying them there. We have to be on videotape buying them from the store's customer service office. We have to be." He said, "Who was the clerk?" I said, "I don't know, just a worker." I realized I had no date of purchase, no name of the employee who took our money and how paranoid one would have to be to write down all this information for a transaction in case its validity comes into question almost half a year later. From now on was I going to have to carry a journal and note the date, time, name of the clerk and other such essentials when buying anything? I knew I was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth but I was not being believed. I realized how innocent people get railroaded into prison and I thought of all the shows on that true crime channel I love to watch. I realized what it feels like to be suspected of a crime that you are totally innocent of and no one believes you. I thought of all the men who have served up to and over 20 years in prison for a rape or murder they didn't commit and realized how frustrating and infuriating that must have been. I also realized that this may soon be happening to me because the detective was inferring that I had bought fraudulent cards and had them validated knowing that they were fake. I had no proof that what I was saying was true. My word meant nothing.

"We have narrowed it down to the two people you must have bought them from," the detective continued. "I swear," I pleaded, "I bought them at the store." "Need I remind you that you are a victim here and not a suspect, Miss," he reiterated. I sighed out of frustration. "We must be on videotape buying it from the office of the store." "They don't sell those there," he said unwaveringly. "Remember you are a victim and not a suspect."

"We have to be on video there. There are video cameras all around those offices," I said realizing that I was losing the staunch sound in my voice. I was getting nowhere with the truth and was probably going to have to talk to this officer in person and probably get arrested along with a ring of people I never met before who were selling fraudulent season waterpark passes. The unwavering unmoveable unbelieving man of the law said he would talk to me later and hung up. I sat there dejected knowing the truth but knowing how feeble the truth was.

My better half said, "Well, maybe I have the receipt." I said, "Yeah, sure. Who the hell is going to have a receipt for something from a grocery store from five months ago?" He went to the closet and pulled out a metal box where he keeps his important papers. After less than two minutes of nervous searching, there it was... proof that I did go to the store with my family that day as I said, proof that it was on May 18th at 4:48 pm and my cashier was Mary B., thank you very much. I felt so relieved because my word and the truth coupled added up to zilch but now I had undeniable evidence that the transaction had transpired just as I had said.

I called up that disbelieving detective and told him I had found the receipt. "Okay," he said, "I'll send somebody out to get it." "Hmmm," I wondered, "How many times have the police lost evidence and then claimed they never saw it in the first place?" I told my better half that we'd better go to the store and make some copies of this liberating little piece of paper. Ironically, we went to our neighborhood HEB to get the copies. You know the manager was interested in our little drama that was unfolding. She gladly made us two copies of our evidence.

Not half an hour later, two detectives with shiny gold badges hung 'round their necks came knocking on my door. "Come in," I said cordially and welcomed them into my humble, innocent abode. I gave them one of my two copies of the receipt for their scrutiny. They scrutinized well, extremely well. "Can I see the original?" one of them asked. I innocently handed it over explaining how I would prefer to keep the original in case they lost it. They said that with my copy of the original that would be sufficient proof. I innocently handed it over to them. I figured that the four of us in the room knew that this was undeniable evidence that we were in no way involved in this whole unscrupulous matter and that my involvement in this scandalous tale of fraud and deceit was over. With that one receipt it was over. Without it, I would have landed in a heap of trouble and probably jail. With it, it became my "get out of jail free" card. I exchanged business cards with the satisfied sleuths and escorted them out of my innocent house, closing the door on this tiny but scary episode in my life. I am forever grateful to my husband for not carelessly throwing away or misplacing that receipt. It could have been forever lost, as a matter of fact, so could I. I will never again mock people who tediously and meticulously keep their records, even their receipts for the last ten years, for as I discovered today keeping a receipt for ten years is way better than doing ten years.