Why I got home at 3:30 a.m.

I have these stories in my head going back 28 years. Don't know where else to dump them.

A downtown hotel clerk called the Nightwatch office. He had two underage kids, a brother and a sister. He couldn't rent them a room, could I help.

"Sure," I said. "I'll be over and talk to them, but it won't be until 2:00 am when I get done here."

Here I am, sitting in the hotel lobby, talking to two very weary teenagers. This is their sad story.

"Mom & Dad left us at home for the weekend. We live in Maple Valley. We thought that since they left us alone, they wouldn't mind if we drove down to Portland to visit our friends. While we were in Portland, the engine on the family car blew up. So our friends put us on the bus to Seattle. But we got to Seattle too late to catch a Metro bus back to our house in Maple Valley."

Easy breezy. Get in the car.

It was a pretty quiet ride. I wish I could have heard their explanation to Mom and Dad the next night, to the question, "Where's the car?"