Not arrested, apprehended.

As the popular British broadcaster, Steve Wright might say, this was a fine piece of muppetry and he'd be right.

The night was both dark and stormy. (Well, okay, it was inner-city Brisbane in October 2000 and it had been raining a bit). I was living and working in a seaside town about four hours drive north of Brisbane but that particular weekend I'd happily driven back to attend a small bon voyage party for a good friend and colleague. She had just taken a scholarship to study epilepsy at the neurology department, the Mayo clinic, Minnesota. (Not a bad achievement for a girl from Bris). We dined at an Indian resto on Park Road, Milton and asked for the bill around midnight. I said my goodbyes and walked back to my car, which I had left parked in a side street. So far so good.

I pulled out into the street and drove up to the T-junction at Park Road. The lights were red. There were two lanes. A non-descript white sedan was in the left lane, indicating left. I was in the right hand lane. Suddenly, I remembered I wasn’t driving home to where I used to live in Brisbane but to another friend’s place, where I had arranged to stay the night. I quietly slipped out of my lane into the left lane behind the white sedan. At this point, everything was still okay.

On the green signal, we both turned left onto Park Road and down to the next intersection at Milton Road. This is where my muppetry began. Since I had last been there, the intersection had changed with a new sign and I couldn't turn right as I had planned. There was nothing for it but to continue behind the white sedan, heading away from my friend’s flat.

By this time it was raining again. The asphalt was glistening under the street lights and visibility by my standards (the astigmatismatic myope's) and I imagine by Brisbane standards in general, was poor. The lines on the roads were barely visible. The sedan and I reached the next major intersection, a complex five-ways. Well, what was a zimble to do? I thought, 'I'm not sure where I am going but the white sedan seems to know where it is going, so, I'll follow it,' and I did, across the intersection.

I know this is tedious but I promise there is a reason for my terminal long windedness, all of it being part of a feeble attempt to ameliorate my muppetry, as you will see.

I realised this was now getting beyond a joke. I was still going in entirely the wrong direction. I turned in a side street and started back out into the traffic, heading for my friend's flat. Suddenly, behind me, in the rear vision mirror were two very large bright lights, very close. 'What a turkey!' I thought to myself, 'high beam in the city and this close?' As though my thoughts were read, the lights were dimmed and I thought nothing more of it. It was an uneventful trip to the street outside my friend's flat by the river at Hill End.

As I pulled in, to park across the road from the flat, suddenly, the lights were there again, right behind me. At this point, several expletives slipped past my lips, 'Sh*t-sh*t-sh*t' to be exact. Whoever was in the car had followed me all the way across town and it probably wasn't to ask for directions!

I considered my options. One was to stay in the car, lock the doors and call the police. Now, had I chosen this option 'A', my muppetry would have magnified a hundred-fold (see below). Fortunately, as it was, I chose what I called option 'B', which was to get out of the car and run like the clappers up to my friend's third floor flat.

I jumped from the car, my purse and keys in hand, slammed the door and started pelting across the road. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of two very fit-looking young men wearing jeans, tee-shirts and runners getting out of a non-descript white sedan and hurrying after me across the road. The expletives worsened. "F**k!" I said, sotto voce.

"Stop! Federal Police!" one of them bellowed.

It's at that sort of moment in life that you feel like your chest is about to cave in, never to draw another breath. I stopped and turned. Although my thoughts at this point were somewhat incoherent, I did understand that if I kept running, things could get worse and possibly involve the firing of guns. The two men were still moving forwards.

I started to edge away from them and one of the men said, "No, you have to stop, we're the police, I'm going to show you my ID."

At that point, fight or flight was giving way to pure fright, along with a strong desire to heave or collapse or simultaneously do both.

The IDs came out and sure enough, the two men were Detective Sergeant Smith and Detective Constable Jones of the A.F.P.

One said, "You can't stand there, in the middle of the road. Come back to the car".

So I did, thinking by this stage that I probably wasn't about to die. The questions from the Sergeant came thick and fast. Whilst the Constable took my drivers licence back to his radio or computer or whatever communications device the A.F.P. have in their car these days, I did my best to answer. Where was I living? Why was I in Brisbane? Whose car was it? (It was a car from the hospital pool). Why was I driving it? What was I doing at Milton? Who was I meeting? And so on and so forth.

Finally, the D.C. returned and handed me my licence.

"Well, that's fine, Miss," he said, "My partner and I are working in this area in collaboration with the drug squad and the CIB and we wanted to know why you were following us."

At that point, the full extent of my muppetry hit me like a Mack truck. I did the only face saving thing a zimble could do and burst into tears.

"I'm terribly sorry," I said shakily, "I always blubber when I get a fright."

The D.C. gave a wry smile and said, "Don't worry Miss, so does the Serg."

After that, they laughed and could not have been kinder or more gentlemanly if they tried. They asked if they could walk me up to my friend's flat and explain it all to her. I said no, thinking that I had wasted enough of their valuable time.

As I said, complete and utter muppetry.