The Shrugger

Bad liar. Bad, bad liar.

I followed up on a complaint I had earlier in the week from my husband (Silent Man) who happens to be a wildlife technician for the DNR. He was working one day when he witnessed a truck with a big black garbage bag drive down a dead end road on the wildlife refuge. When Silent Man saw the truck return from the dead end sans garbage bag he decided to have a chat.

typical dump site found on wildlife areas

Silent Man asked the driver, an older, balding fellow, what had happened to the garbage bag. The driver merely shrugged his shoulders and denied knowing anything about a garbage bag. My husband pointed to the pool of brown ooze that had leaked from the bag and asked again about its whereabouts. Another shrug.

Silent Man took down the license plate number and gave it to me when he got home. "I told the guy I would be seeing him in court." I asked what the driver's response was. "He just shrugged."

So, I ran the plate through state radio and came up with an address.

Notice the Public Hunting sign-littering is my biggest pet peave

I arrived at the address today to find a very nice home with a very well manicured lawn. Obviously this guy could afford garbage service.

When the driver came to the door I said, "Did you encounter a worker out at the wildlife area on Friday?"

"I was at the wildlife area," he replied.

"Ok...can you tell me why you dumped a bag of garbage at the end of the dead end road?" I asked.

"I don't know what you are talking about," he said.

This was obviously going to go nowhere, so I cut to the chase, "The worker had a good description of your truck and he witnessed the bag in the back of your truck when you drove into the area and noticed the bag was gone when you left the area. I'm going to give you a citation for littering on public lands."

He stared at me blankly.

"So, did you dump a bag of garbage?"

"No," he said. And shrugged.

"Are you sure?" I asked (notice my superb interrogation skills).

"I can't prove anything," he said shrugging, "but how much would it be if I pled guilty?"

Hint: If you want the Fish-Cop to believe that you did nothing wrong, don't shrug and then ask how much the fine would be if you were to just happen to plead guilty to something you didn't do.