Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Wednesday all ready?

Yeah, it looks like Wednesday, although the days are starting to run together. Of course, it's about 8:00 p.m. and I'm still at work.

Still, tomorrow starts the Christmas season for me. Tomorrow night we go to Milady's office party which is going to be held a some restaurant. I intend to be polite and not drink. I'll get Milady home safely.

Friday night is my office party. I intend to eat copiously, drink responsibly, dance, tell lies, and listen to bullshit. When you put a couple of hundred cops in the same room, with wives and whiskey, there isn't any telling what you're liable to hear.

Here's one from last year. An old-time cop who spent a lot of time in a small sheriff's office was talking about the early '80's. They had just been issued pepper spray (OC) for the first time.

"I was patrolling up north in the parish when the sheriff came on the radio, said he had just passed a hitchhiker on the Scenic Highway, and someone get up there and get that bum out of the parish, so I rolled that way. Sure enough, about five miles from the parish line, there was this guy hitchhiking, thumb out for the world, and he was headed north, so I pulled over and told him I'd give him a lift to the parish line.

"He got in the cruiser and we hadn't gone a more'n a mile before I realized the guy was gamy. Real gamy. Smelled like he hadn't showered in a week. I knew I was going to have to drive around for an hour or so to get the funk outta my car, and it was July and hot outside. I told the fella he needed some deodorant. When we got to the parish line, I handed him my canister of OC, told him it was a new deodorant my wife had bought. He got out of the car and unbuttoned his shirt and sprayed each pit. He dropped my spray on the passenger seat and I turned my car around to head back.

"When I looked in the rearview mirror at him, he was flapping his arms like he was trying to fly north toward Shreveport. I don't suppose he ever got off the ground, though, because he wasn't running quite quick enough."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man! that was just mean

Anonymous said...

That "old time cop" is a sadist. There's not much worse than a cop who enjoys hurting people, especially helpless people. There's probably a long list of people that cop has abused over the years.

Anonymous said...

That was evil. So much for "protect and serve". PawPaw, I know it wasn't you who did this, but I'm disappointed that you would think it was amusing. h

Anonymous said...

Did 'ya hear the one about the HIV infected needle being hidden in the pay phone coin return slot?

How about the Kentucky Fried squirrel? (actually KFC would ruin some fried squirrel, but that's beside the point)

Sorry, y'all, but this sounds like a tall tale.

Pawpaw said...

No, I haven't heard the one about Kentucky Fried Squirrel, although if it was on the menu, it wouldn't offend me.

The HIV needle thing? Yeah, that was all over the police training net back 8 or 10 years ago. I've never seen it, but I don't doubt it happened somewhere, sometime.

Matt G said...

Fairy tale: "Once upon a time..."

Cop tale: "No shit-- this is how it happened..."

:)

I'm 35 years old, and I've been listening to cop tales all my life. (Dad was sworn in in the late '60's.) Some of them are funny. Some sad. Some are just weird. All of them stick in the brain. A good cop is a born story-teller. Maybe it comes from daily being presented with forms that have large white spaces entitled "Narrative." Maybe it comes from spending each shift trying to find out what really happened, and wondering if this call will fit into type X.

Dunno. But cops have and will always tell outrageous stories.