Breaking (Old) News

So . . . guess what my kids learned during homeschool today?

A few years before we moved into our house, a murder took place on our rather secluded driveway.  For some reason, this particular murder case continues to live on through crime TV because it was not an easy case to solve.  The murderer killed a husband and wife for their antique pick-up truck and made a pretty fair attempt at framing someone else for the crime.

Since we moved into our house almost 10 years ago, our driveway has seen two reenactments of this crime.  Six or seven years ago, Forensic Files filmed a reenactment out there and Flamingo Joe and I got to play critical roles.  Forensic Files apparently gets their actors on the cheap by not actually hiring actors.  Joe played the startled homeowner who drives out and discovers the bodies.

And I played a dead body.

We never saw the episode, but I’m pretty sure I was the most convincing still-living dead body ever.

When the crew from On the Case with Paula Zahn appeared on our driveway last week to interview one of the detectives who investigated the case, I went out and graciously offered my experience as a dead body again, but they declined.  After the crew left, however, I received a phone call from someone in New York asking if it would be okay to film again this week.  Being a conscientious homeschooling mother, I said yes, so long as my kids could stand out there and gawk at them while they were working.  The nice man on the phone readily agreed.  My friend Heidi, who used to work in this industry, informs me that it was at that point that I should have asked for a “location fee.”

Location fee?  Are you kidding me?  I should be paying these people for the fun I get out of these things.  I get to stand around and chat up the production people and tell the story of how I found I out from a complete stranger at Home Depot, that we were getting ready to close on a property where a double murder had been committed.  And how when I called my realtor in a panic and asked her if we could cancel our contract because two bodies had been found on the property, she said, “Are they still there?!?”

It’s a hoot.

So today my children learned how crime TV reenactments are done.  They got bored after about five minutes.  Maybe I don’t need to worry about them wanting to work in television.

Based on their parents’ example, I do, however, need to worry about them turning into the kind of people who are so redneck that they leave random car seats out in the front yard even when a New York film crew will be visiting.

Sigh.