Rookie Mistakes Part II

Continued from Rookie Mistakes Part I...

I was hoping to give a quick littering ticket and then get the hell out of there, but she had just complicated things. I knew, (and unfortunately she probably knew), that an OWI (Operating While Intoxicated) charge would be a much harder sell now that she was chugging one down inside her own house right in front of me. All she would have to do is tell the judge that she had downed three beers in the length of time it took to answer the door. Judging from how fast she was slurping down the current one, I might have believed it too.

The other problem was that I was green. It was my first year on the job and had never actually encountered a real drunk driver before. Things may have gone differently if there had been a seasoned officer with me that day. But she was lucky, and could probably smell a newbie who had never given anyone a field sobriety test (except of course for the drunk volunteers at the police academy).

I decided to save my breath. Thankfully she had made it home without killing anyone.

"Why did you dump that garbage out in the park?" I asked.

“I wanted to,” she said. Ok…she wasn’t giving me too much to work with. I explained that I was going to give her a ticket for littering. Then the sternest voice I could muster, I gave her a harsh warning about driving while hammered.

“Whatever,” she said, and collapsed into the recliner, flipped on the tv and ignored me. I filled out a citation, and walked it over to the recliner. She was engrossed in the home shopping network, and trying desperately to develop enough coordination with her thumb to light up another cigarette. Eventually, she lit it, snatched my ticket book out of my hands and without being asked, signed on the line. I think she had gotten a ticket before.

I left, and headed for home. As I pulled into my driveway, I rolled down my window and checked my mailbox. Empty.

It turns out that I didn’t have long to wait to get another chance with Mrs. Knorr. Three days later I was returning home from work again, through the state park again when a call came over the radio to be on the lookout for a possible intoxicated driver in a tan Pontiac on a blacktop road about three miles from my house.

Rarely am I in the right place at the right time, especially for game warden stuff- like catching someone poaching a deer from the window of their truck, or watching someone over-bag on ducks- but for other things like bad drivers, accidents and my secret special talent-finding people having elusive sex in the backseats of a minivans, I’m Mrs. Johnny On The Spot.

About three minutes later I met the tan Pontiac. And sure enough there was a short, blond woman peeking over the dashboard attempting to drive. I turned around and got into position behind the car. It was classic drunk driving behavior but even more obvious. A surge of confidence rushed through my brain as I thought to myself, “They lectured us for two days straight in the police academy about how to detect drunk drivers.  Either they grossly under-estimated our intelligence, I was extremely observant in picking out the clues, or this lady was very drunk.”

 I hit my lights and sirens. She didn't respond. I changed the siren tone to the cool one that sounds like a cop car in London. Still nothing. The car inched towards the outside of the road a couple times and each time I thought Mrs. Knorr was going to pull over, she would swerve out again, crossing the center line.

I radioed dispatch to tell them that it looked as though I was in a 25 mile per hour chase. She led me on a scenic tour of the county blacktops, until she decided that maybe she’d be able to lose me on the gravel road. I stayed behind her. Finally, she began to pull over to the side of the road. The car rolled to a stop.

In hindsight, there are so many things I screwed up that I’m surprised I’ve survived as long as I have. My officer safety skills were a little bit lacking. In any case, I jumped out of my truck and scurried up the driver’s door and asked to see her driver’s license. She fumbled around and eventually managed to pull out something that resembled a driver’s license.

“Turn off the car. Stay right there. Don’t go anywhere!” I said.

Though it may have made a little more sense to just take her keys away from her, and maybe try out those fancy handcuffs they gave me which I never expected to actually use. But I felt a strange sense of confusion. She is innocent until proven guilty, right? So…maybe I’ll just check her license first and see if there are any warrants for her arrest first, THEN I’ll worry about whether or not she is drunk…because maybe she really just didn’t see my lights and maybe her music was up so loud she couldn’t hear my sirens? That must be it. Man, was I ever stupid.

Unfortunately I can’t turn back the hands of time to thump myself alongside my head and whisper in my ear, “Hello? Are you stupid? You may want to consider taking her keys away. The keys!” Instead, The instant I began walking back to my truck, with her driver’s license in hand, she fired up the Pontiac, and put the hammer down.

To be continued...

A Rookie Mistake Part I

I call it the hairless cat paradox. Some things are just so ugly they are cute- like hairless cats. No matter how disturbed you are looking at the rat-like tail held high in the air, you just can’t seem to stop yourself from scratching it on its bald little head and saying in a baby voice, “Oh. You are sooooo cute. I love those little wrinkles!”

My encounters with Mrs. Knorr are another version of the hairless cat paradox- they were so sad, in the end, you can’t help but chuckle.

The first time I made Mrs. Knorr’s acquaintance, I was driving through a state parks  on my way home after a long day of working. I lived just a few miles from the park, so I had the good fortune of driving through this scenic little place almost every day. It was a great way to unwind from the stresses of the day. But my reverie came to a screeching halt, when the driver of the tan Pontiac I was following on this particular day hoisted a bag of garbage out of the window and into the woods, without even slowing down.

I continued following the Pontiac up the hill and out of the park. Just outside the park, the road emerges from the woods and begins a series of S-turns, making it difficult to find a safe place to make a traffic stop. Following behind the car through the S-turns I was able to catch a glimpse of the the driver. The driver appeared to be a woman, with shoulder length blonde hair. Her head just cleared the steering wheel, giving the impression that she was possibly seven years old, but the cigarette she was sucking on put her age more at thirty.

As we came out of the S-curves and the blacktop stretched out straight ahead, I made my move. I flipped on my emergency lights and waited for the Pontiac to pull over. It didn’t. I tried my siren, but to no avail. Smokey Lungs Lady was completely oblivious.

I could see my turn for home coming up ahead.  For a brief moment I thought about forgetting about it, and heading for home. But, I couldn’t do it. I hate litterbugs. Just as I was coming up to my road, the Pontiac turned onto it. Apparently Smokey Lung Litter Lady was a neighbor of mine.  I lived at the end of a rather long dead end road, so it would be my luck that I’d have to cite my neighbor for littering and then proceed to drive past her house several times a day on the way to and from mine. I doubted she would give me any good-morning waves. It would also be my luck that she would be the person to whom my elderly mail carrier would deliver my mail. My mail was being delivered to the wrong address so often that it would have made more sense to stop at each house on my way home, and pick up my mail as I went. Maybe the poor guy was developing cataracts and couldn’t read the addresses, though since he drives one of those little mail jeeps at mach ten down my road, the mail should be the least of my concerns.  It was entirely possible that if I cited this woman for littering that one day she would be struck dead by the blind mailman as she scattered nails around the entrance to my driveway.

The Pontiac whipped into the driveway of the third house on my road. She quickly pulled into the garage, closing the garage door in my face as I pulled into the driveway behind her.

I radioed in my location, and stepped out of my truck and walked up to the front door of the house. My chances of someone actually answering the door were about as good as my coon eating dog brushing her own teeth.

Just as I was about to give up after the third doorbell ring, a middle aged man answered the door. 

 “Can I help you?” he asked, squinting at me from behind the screen door.

 “Well, I need to speak to the woman that just pulled into your garage,” I said.

  “Pam? Well, she is…uh…” he began, but then Pam herself staggered into the room. She was holding a Budweiser can in one hand, and a smoldering cigarette in the other. Her blond hair glistened from grease and hung limp at her shoulders. She looked me in the eye and took a giant slug of beer. An ash from her smoke dropped onto the carpet, and she stepped on it to extinguish the spark.

 “Whatd’ ya wan?” she said, slurring her words into one.

TO BE CONTINUED...

What is that Smell?

Our yellow lab, Bailey, loves toast. Her ears perk up the moment she detects the crinkling sound of the bread bag. By the time the bread is dropped into the slot, the Pavlovian response is in full swing. She can be located anywhere in the house, or anywhere in the tri-state region, and still she will hear the sound of the dropped lever. Her claws clatter across the hardwood floor and she flops down on her haunches at my feet with two foot long strings of drool hanging from the corners of her mouth. Then the staring begins. She tilts her head, tries to appear pathetic, and never looks away.

My kids exhibit the same ultrasonic hearing capabilities when I enter the bathroom. They can be anywhere in the house, but the moment I drop trow and sit down for a nice relaxing…you know what, it is like moths to a campground bathroom light fixture. Within two seconds of sitting down, I look at the doorknob, willing it to stay put. But inevitably it begins a slow turn and my daughter, Chatterbox, bursts in, winging a giant pink punch balloon by the rubber band.

She is talking as though in the midst of a conversation I may or may not have been part of before entering the bathroom. She is always talking. From the moment she wakes up to the moment her eyes close at night, she is providing a narrative about the goings on around her. 

Now as I sit there on the pot she is punching the balloon into my forehead and saying, “But flowers don’t have faces, and suns don’t either. But when it shines it makes the flowers smile. But they don’t have faces though, and the suns don’t have faces either.” I don’t get it either.

Now my son, "Towhead", discovers where Mommy has gone off to and comes rushing in the door too. He makes a bee-line to the step stool in front of the sink which he has recently learned to climb all by himself. He is the opposite of his sister- he hardly ever speaks. When he does it sounds a lot like Mandarin. I think. I don’t speak Mandarin.

The pink balloon continues its assault on my face while Towhead stands proudly on top of the stool, squealing in delight and clutching the little red cup. He stabs his finger at the water faucet which is well out of his reach and implores me to turn it on. “Uh! Uh! Uh!” translates to “Turn it on, damn it! Turn on the water, you dolt! Can’t you hear me?” I reach over and turn on the water so he can fill up his cup and dump it all over the counter and floor.

Chatterbox still hasn’t stopped talking. She is pontificating about bodily functions, “But when I drink orange juice I pee. And when I eat I poop. But when I drink orange juice sometimes I pee AND I poop. But I poop when I eat. Do I pee when I drink water?”

Now Towhead begins bouncing up and down, up and down on the stool. His grin is wide. He is so happy. He can say, “Up!” when he stands up. He can’t say ‘Down’ though, so he must squat down in order to stand up again and say “Up!”

Just as I receive the thirteenth blow to my temple from the pink balloon, Towhead takes a side-step off the stool and careens towards the floor. He lands on his head, and begins crying. I’m helpless. I madly start wiping so I can come to the rescue of my boy, now splayed on the floor with his feet in the air and his face bright red and covered in tears. But this was a multiple wipe job.

This catastrophe hasn’t stopped Chatterbox- she's just louder now to cover the sound of Towhead's wailing. “But, someday I want to build a snowman. I’ll name him Frosty. But Daddy can help me, because he knows how to build a snowman…”

I’m finally in satisfactory condition, so flush the toilet, stand up and yank my pants back up from my ankles and run my hands under the faucet for the less than required two times through the Happy Birthday song. I scoop Towhead off the floor hold him while he continues the aftermath gasps of his crying jag. On the way out the door I reach over and shut off the light and Chatterbox follows behind, banging her balloon and saying, as though she is asking what is in the oven, “What do I smell?”

Though I’m trying hard to remain stressed, I  crack and start laughing.  Chatterbox, my mini-FBI agent in training doesn't relent. She must know what has caused the foul odor...I give her my best answer, "It must be your brother."

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.