Pot? What pot?

I've spent the last several evenings arresting drunk people driving boats. Of course, I always stumble on them as I'm on my way back to my vehicle to head home for the night. Two nights ago I had an especially interesting one. He was not only drunk...but also high.

Here is a list of things this gem said to me throughout the evening.

1. "Pot? What pot?"
"The pot that I quite plainly smell right now. Where is it?"
"I don't have any pot. Do you guys have any pot?"

2. "Pleeeeaaaase? I'm already in enough trouble out here. Can you please pretend you didn't see the pot?"
"What do you mean you are already in enough trouble out here?"
"Two weeks ago some lady said that I raped her. It was a misunderstanding."

3. "How much did you smoke?"
"I didn't smoke anything."
"I'm not stupid. How much did you smoke?"
"I didn't smoke anything."
"Open your mouth so I can see your tongue....thank you...that's what I thought. How much did you smoke?"
"Maybe one hit."

4. "Is there anyone you can call to come and load up your boat? We are going downtown, so someone needs to take possession of your boat. Who can you call?"
"I could call my wife, but she is still mad at me about the rape."

5. "You are under arrest for Boating While Intoxicated. If you are going to be decent with me, I'll cuff you in the front for the ride."
"Wow, I feel like a seal. These are great flippers!" (as he claps his cuffed hands together).

6. "Can you pleeeeaaase turn on the lights and sirens? This is the worst night of my life, at least you can make it a little more fun for me."

7. "My nipples are hard. Can you turn down the air?"
"Sure."
"Unless you want my nipples to be hard."
"No thanks"

8. "And I'm not going to say anything about women drivers. That would be a bad idea right now. So I'm not going to say one thing about bad women drivers. By the way, why couldn't Helen Keller drive?"
Silence
"Because she was a woman! Ha Ha Ha!"
Silence
"Didn't you think that was funny? Even a little bit?"
Silence
"I guess not. Sorry."

9. "Come to think of it I don't think I smoked any of that weed."

10. "This is a Drug Recognition Expert. He is here to run you through some tests to see how much the drugs are affecting your body."
"What drugs?"
He fails each test miserably until finally he says,
"Ok, I don't want to do any more tests. You have already looked at my eyes enough"
DRE: "Sir, we only have about 2 more minutes to go in these tests. We would appreciate it if you would just finish it up."
"Well....alright. I guess you probably know by now that I haven't smoked anything anyway. Go ahead and finish."

11. "I was fired last week because my boss said I have a bad attitude and that all I care about is boating."
"You sure it wasn't for getting arrested and charged with rape?"
"Could've been that too."

12. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say, can and will be used against you in a court of law..."
"That is what got me into trouble with the rape. I told the truth."

Uh huh-That was about four hours of my life I will never get back. Is it hunting season yet? Pleeeaaase?

Cops Against CSI

People shouldn't be allowed to watch CSI.

Let me re-phrase that...people shouldn't be allowed to watch CSI and then call me. I wish the department would outfit me with all the gadgets that the folks on CSI have in their back pockets, but to be perfectly honest, even my flashlight barely works...and I had to beg for that. The chance of my supervisor handing me some kind of handheld, fingerprint reader, dna matcher, bad guy-finder do-dad is pretty far out of the question.

So, here are some calls I've taken where I think the expectations might have been a bit high. And these are really just the few I could think of in the last ten minutes:

Q: "My jet ski was stolen, but I found it parked at a sandbar on the river. Can you come and take a look at it?"
A: "And then what? I can come and look at your jet ski that was once stolen but later found. And I can look at it some more. But no matter how long I look at it, I will never be able to take fingerprints from it. And even if I could take fingerprints from it, I have nothing to which to compare them. No matter how long I stare at the jet ski, no visions will come to me. I'm not a psychic."

Q: "Someone was trespassing on my property last night. I never saw the vehicle, but you should be able to come up with something from the tire tracks they left."
A: "Um. No. I won't be able to determine jack from the tire tracks they left. Unless they happened to drop the vehicle registration on top of the tire tracks, there are only about 100,000 vehicles in the state with the same exact tires making the same exact tracks as those left in your driveway."

Q:"I found an arrow in the road. I'll keep it for you in case it ever matches up to another case you are working on."
A: "Thank you so much for the help. I'm sure someday I will be able to match up the arrow to a poaching case. Was the arrow hand-made in some unique fashion, or is it a lot like the rest of the billion arrows sold to bowhunters nationwide? I'll scan it with my super-duper arrow identifier 3000, and maybe look at the blades under a spectra-micronoscope to determine the dna of the hairs the arrow might have once touched from the deer that was missed."

Q: "There are a pile of geese thrown in the dumpster behind our apartment complex"
A: "Did they happen to tell you who shot them? Oh, and did they have a license? Because otherwise, we have no violation."

Q: "I found a small piece of camo clothing on the barbed wire fence where someone has been trespassing. I saved it in case you can use it as evidence."
A: "Good thinking."

No, I'm not bitter. Just don't get me started on Law and Order.

Blast Off!

I just saw a little too much of the Super Wash guy.

Super Wash Man is sweet, older gentleman, with a soft spot for cops. Everytime I pulled into the car wash he would come hurrying over to my stall and feed the machine full of quarters so I could give me truck the "VIP" treatment. He'd smile and tell me to have a nice day.

I always pictured Super Wash Man, going home to his elderly wife, greeting her with a peck on the cheek, and sitting down on the front porch for a piece of apple pie that she baked specially for her sweet Super Wash husband. His cat would curl up on his lap, and he would tell Super Wash Wife all about his day- the cars he saw, the people he talked to, all the squad cars he helped keep clean...

But then.

My dream.

Was smeared.

Like a bug on the windshield.

I was driving through the wildlife area, minding my own business, listening to NPR, when I noticed a red pickup truck stopped in the middle of the road up ahead. Slowly, I pulled up behind the car.

"That's strange," I mumbled to myself. I couldn't see anyone in the truck. Why would someone park their truck in the middle of the road and walk away? Maybe it was broken down.

There was just enough room for me to pull my truck up alongside the red truck, so I could drive past it. I inched my truck up to the driver's side of the red truck, and looked into the window.

And that is when I saw it.

Someone was mooning me from the driver's window...

"What the hell?" I said. Why would someone moon me?

But then.

The person turned and looked over his shoulder. He was thin, and had gray hair. It was Super Wash Man. First he had a look of terror on his face. And then a look of recognition.

Then suddenly a woman sat up from under Super Wash Man. She had long, curly blond hair. She wasn't wearing any clothes. And she wasn't Super Wash Wife.

I got out of my truck and walked up to the window and told them to put on some clothes. Then, although I sadly knew the answer, I had to ask anyway, "Ma'am, are you here by choice?"

"Yes," she squeaked.

"Ok," I said.

I turned around, got into my truck and drove away.

My image of sweet Super Wash Man is forever tarnished. I will never be the same. And I fear, I will never again, get a free car wash.

Summer Fair Time

I worked at a booth today for the county fair. I don't know if I pinched the person who was in charge of booth locations, or not. How else could I have deserved this booth location? On one side I had a view of this:

For those of you who have not had a chance to sit next to this for 8 hours...from what I could gather it was the cow shower area. All day long cows got a good scrub down. Some even got a bubble bath treatment.

And on the other side of our booth we had a great view of the Ugliest Cake Contest.

This was my favorite:

You just gotta love county fairs.