By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

There was even something different in the police dispatcher's voice. The usual deadpan delivery over the scanner had a different kind of sound to it. Was he ... smiling?

The dispatcher started out by saying a "complainant" called about three "juveniles" seen possibly taking something out of a parked vehicle.

The caller's name, the dispatcher said with certain emphasis, was a Mrs. Gouveia. Mrs. Gouveia apparently not only spotted the kids monkeying around the car, she confronted them.

They ran. She chased. Mrs. Gouveia prevailed.

"Caller has the three juveniles sitting on the side of the road," came the voice on the scanner.

Heads turned in the newsroom.

Mrs. Gouveia had apprehended the perps and was calling for backup!

Go, Mrs. Gouveia, go!

For a moment there, you could just picture her: Mrs. Gouveia, a one-woman crime-fighting force.

She could outrun car thieves, apprehend the suspects and give their parents a stern talking-to along with a jar of homemade papaya-liliko'i jelly.

She could bust phone scam artists while stirring a pot of beef stew and mending her neighbor's girl's choir mu'umu'u all at the same time.

She would straighten out kids who needed straightening out, straighten out parents who needed straightening out. She could leap over tall Mililani curbside recycling containers. Plus, she'd mow her yard, change her car oil and hang dry wall in her spare time.

Her first name, known only to her husband and her older brother (who retired from working City and County) wouldn't be something delicate like Tyffani or Brittaney or Cassandra. It would be something sturdy, but secret. Mostly, she'd be called "Missus," even if she was speaking in the first person.

"Mrs. Gouveia saw you lift that Honda emblem," she'd say.

"Mrs. Gouveia knows you didn't pay for those Doritos. Go put them back. Now."

"Mrs. Gouveia is very disappointed in you. You shouldn't be jacking cars like that. How shame! Mrs. Gouveia knows you folks' mothers, you know."

She'd say all the things we've thought of saying but then stopped ourselves because "Nah, I no like get involved."

She'd do all the things we wish we could do but we don't because "Nah, somebody else will take care of it."

She'd have the energy and determination and courage that we refuse to demand of ourselves, saying, "Nah. I tired. I busy. I get shtress."

We'll probably never know if the real Mrs. Gouveia is anything like the imaginary Super Mrs. Gouveia, but for a moment, there was a vision of hope that someone out there had the spunk and the nerve to make a difference.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.