Alcohol; A Magical Potion

Alcohol is a magical potion. It does not effect everyone the same way so it is not a very stable magic potion. I have seen it turn a very shy person into the life of the party, they became funny and entertaining, they just cut lose and did not embarrass themselves, they were just funny. I have also seen it turn a good person into a grade A asshole, an intelligent person into a babbling idiot, a modest woman into an exhibitionist, saints into sinners, atheist into true believers (if for only until the room quit spinning in different directions) and modest (some say prudish) people into raging sex machines. All this is not news, everyone has seen the same things as I have, and yet some people continue to experiment with the potion as if they have some control over it. They don't. Where alcohol is concerned, control is only an illusion.

This weekend alone I witnessed every single one of these transformations. A young lady that wanders through my life, one who won't tell me her real name and continues to give the name Shaneese because she likes to keep it mysterious, became VERY intoxicated. I hate to break it to you but the mystery is gone once you have watched someone be carried away over their boyfriends shoulder and you watch them vomit all over themselves on the way to the hospital. A beautiful woman transformed into someone you don't want to touch and are afraid to come within 6 feet of, potion failure. I will add that I have never before seen her in this state, and I don't believe that she will ever let it come to that again, she's smart and learns from things that go wrong.

I seen another young fellow that when I met him earlier in the night appeared to be an intelligent young man. When I met him later that night and he was intoxicated he had become an idiot. He had become that drunken asshole that wants to fight with everyone. He was trying to fight 30 people, and that is not an inflated number, by himself. I was trying to get him to get in a cab and go home and he was having none of it. I had come to the point that I was tempted to let him go ahead with his brilliant idea, get his ass kicked, then arrest him for a number of charges. Instead I decided I was just going to arrest him for public intoxication for his own safety and well being. He was saved by a local cab driver who was watching all this from the street. He got out of his cab and talked the idiot into coming with him. I like this cab driver. The idiot should have given him one huge tip at the end of his ride.

The drunks that decide to get in their cars and drive are the worst of them all. When there is an accident involving these morons it's never them that gets hurt, it's always some innocent person that was just trying to get to work or home from visiting grandma or something. There are thousands of cabs that will take you anywhere you want to go, find one. They are easy to spot and if you call the company, one will be sent to you. Isn't that amazing! The people that belong to fraternities and sororities that drive intoxicated make no sense at all. They not only have the cab option, but they belong to an organization that is suppose to be their brothers and sisters that care for them. Why not call one of them? The ones I know would be more than happy to go get their brothers and sisters from where ever they are and bring them home safely rather than let them drive.

Alcohol is a magical potion, but it more often than not goes bad. So if you are going to experiment with the potion, be careful and do so in moderation. I like rum, but I know that the warm fuzzy feeling is as good as it gets, so once that is achieved I maintain it and don't push passed it. Once you push past the warm and fuzzy you just get into the realm of spinning rooms and praying to the toilet.

PADDLE FASTER, I HEAR BANJO MUSIC

Most people that have seen the Jerry Springer show laugh at the people that appear on stage, they figure that there is no way there are actually people like this in the world. Those of us in law enforcement know better, they do exist and their numbers are increasing at an alarming rate.

To give an example, here is a brief overview of one such case and it is all true. I responded to the Children's Hospital on a Domestic call in the ICU. You would think people would be a little more concerned about the child in the ICU than about fighting with one another. This couple that was involved in the squabble were straight out of the movie Deliverance. They had apparently been spitting at each other prior to our arrival. Nice. The child in the ICU is definitely her child. She is not sure however if it is her boyfriends, whom she is fighting with, or her husbands, who is in a coma in another wing of the same hospital complex. Starting to see the Jerry Springer connection yet?

They contend that they were not spitting at each other, like they told the nurses when they came in to see what all the yelling was about. They say that they were just arguing really loud. It is by this time 3:00 am and no time for a screaming match. We separate the two rocket scientists and talk to them separately. The male portion of this duo says that he was just upset because he gets frustrated when she is trying to explain things to him. She has all the education and she is really smart and he just can't understand what shes trying to say and he gets frustrated and starts to yell and..... on and on. This was the way he was explaining it to us, pretty much his exact words. We get through with listening to his dissertation and go in to get her version. We get the same story from her, basically. When I start to explain to her that they have now lost their privilege to stay in the hospital overnight and that they are going to have to leave and come back only during visiting hours, she tells me; " Honey I understand exactly whats going on, hell I went all the way to the 10th grade, I's educated." Yikes.

Turns out that these two love birds are both on probation for domestic violence, against each other. Neither one has a drivers licence and Miss Buella, who they called last time they were kicked out of the hospital four days prior, is out looking for her cow and can't come get them. They sat at a corner gas station, freaking out the people who passed by during the remainder of the night, until the buses started running in the morning. Taking them back to God only knows where, but I hope they stay there and breed no more.

Why did my stuff get stolen????

I have to wonder, exactly what does it take to get people to lock their doors when they leave the house? What will make people stop letting just random people, people they have no idea who they are or where they come from, roam freely about their house's? One would think that having your stuff stolen would do it, but it has not. On this very night, a familiar scenario was played out once again. A certain fraternity house, who shall remain nameless, let two random people hang out with them and have free range of the entire house. These two individuals said they were members of this house at another university. They were challenged to provide the exclusive handshake, all house's have one, and they were unable to do so. This would have been enough for me to throw them out of my house. They decided to tell them that they were just kidding, they were actually members of a different fraternity from a far away university. They were allowed to stay and drink with the house members. Why? Don't know. After the house members all retired to their little beds for the night, our two imposter's were still lurking about the house. The president of this house heard "a loud scraping noise" coming from downstairs. He went to check this out, where he found one of the individuals trying to run out of the house with a mini fridge. He, and another house member, gave chase. They got away in an SUV but were soon pulled over and arrested, the driver it would seem was to intoxicated to be driving a get-away vehicle. So it ended well. No one was hurt, all the stuff they tried to steal was returned and the bad guys went to jail to make new friends. Do I think this will teach this house to lock the doors and not let people they don't know hang around all night? No. Because this exact same scenario was played out at this very same house a couple of years ago. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Common sense is dead.

It has been a while since I have taken the time to sit down and write anything. Not that there has been nothing going on, but so much has gone on that there has been no time. Some of what happened was not very good, to say the least, and it was better not to write about those things at the time. The summer overall has been very good. To quote Jimmy Buffet, "Some of its magic, some of it's tragic but I've had a good life over all", or something close to that.

To start the summer, I was betrayed. Betrayed by someone very close to me. That hurt more than a little. I won't go into the details, but she was close to me and I gave her all I could and I did all I could for her. Then one day she decided that she was no longer going to talk to me. This because after she had left her husband, who treats her like dirt, for the third time...she decided to take him back. I asked why she was taking him back and her answer was...."I don't know". I told her I didn't want to hear her complain about how bad he was anymore if she was going to take him back. The next day she sends a text message saying she won't be talking to me anymore for a while. I've known this woman since she was a kid.

That started my summer off on a bad note. But I did receive a visit from four Angels from my past. I don't know why these four suddenly materialized out of the blue, but they came at the right time to cheer me back up. All four are young women I met while they were attending college. All four pointed out how much I had helped them in the past and that I can't just stop trying to help people just because of one who refuses to help herself. They appeared one at a time at different intervals, each magically appearing just at the right time. They will never know just how much they helped me get over the blues.

Then the summer led me to the beach. The ocean has always helped me clear my head and see things a little more clearly. It cleansed my soul and I came away with a renewed attitude, back to being me basically. Roll with the flow, let the haters destroy each other cuz I ain't playin their games. One of the coolest things was the dolphins. One morning as I was sitting just beyond the breakers, watching for that perfect wave to come by a sweep me back to the shore, fins surfaced on either side of me. Now, at first sight, a fin breaking the surface of the water on either side of you, will make you think about running on top of the water for the shore. I was about to attempt this feat when the animals came above surface completely. For a few beats of the heart, I just knew I was going to have a guest spot on Shark Week. The pair of dolphins swam beside me for a little while and then they were off. This served to improve my attitude ALOT. Karma. It's a real thing and they were there to remind me of that. Back to being the California guy that I am deep down.

While I was away getting my karma fixed, I was off work for a month, certain people in my department took full advantage of this time to stab me in the back. Interesting. They are still in the process of the stabbing. They are so busy trying to make me look bad, ruin what all I have accomplished and discredit what I have done that they don't even see whats about to come down on them from above. Sometimes focus can be a bad thing I guess. Like I said, karma is a real thing. The karma cops are coming and they have no clue.

The Death of Common Sense

I don't know the actual time of death, or even what day it expired in it's entirety. I just know that common sense, in general, is dead. Don't believe me, look around for yourself. There is no sign of it anywhere, at least not in my neck of the woods. If it had not died, if it truly did still survive in some form or another, I wouldn't have to deal with the situations that I keep having to deal with day in and day out. For example:
On what planet is it a good idea for two drunk, highly not moderately so, to ride a couch down a set of stairs into the middle of a party? They did not see anything wrong with this idea and wanted to argue their point of view. With their couch taken out of play the same two idiots made an attempt at the stairs with a table. Did I mention that the bottom of the stairway was crowded with people dancing to a live band at this party?

Two different idiots, they seem to travel in pairs I've noticed, were dancing on top of a basketball goal. Yes, I said dancing on the top. Their intellect seeming to have been temporarily missing or stolen, they had to be told to get down before they fell. They argued that they weren't going to fall, they knew what they were doing. One of the pair fell flat on his face onto the basketball court below. This required him to take a trip to the emergency room and receive a couple of stitches above his eye. Of course sense they have to travel in pairs now days, idiot #2 had to go along for the ride. I did not see either one the rest of the weekend.

Then we have the Roof Rangers. This is more than just a pairing of idiots. This is several pairs that have banded together to form a group. They like to get on the sauce and then get on the roof. Doesn't this just sound like a wonderful idea? Morons. They not only want to get on the roof, but they want to get as close to the edge as they possibly can without falling off. I've noticed that at least two Roof Rangers must fall from the roof before the rest of the group figures out where the line of "to close" is actually located.

This is just a couple of examples and its just the younger population. If it was just them I could write it off as youthful exuberance, but its not. It's infected the older ones as well. I could give a multitude of examples on the command staffs lunacy but it just pisses me off to think about the stuff they do. There is only a couple of them worth saving, how they got promoted is a mystery. They clearly don't have what it takes to be like the rest of them. They should run before they are scheduled for whatever medical procedure it is they do on them to remove their common sense. You listening Pirate? Run! Don't walk into the light! They drive me to the brink of insanity sometimes, I don't know how you deal with it, having to walk amongst them like you do, on a daily basis no less.

Keystone Cops

It has been a little while since I have had the time to write anything in here. I still don't really have the time right now, but I felt I must write this little story down so I don't ever forget it. It definitely will have to be in my book one day.

I have always told people that my job is more like Reno 911 and less like C.O.P.S. Anyone that works in this Field will say the same thing, but my department seems to have more of a resemblance to this then the others. To prove that I work with the Keystone Cops I now have this story.

It was raining and it was cold, just warm enough to keep the rain from becoming snow. It was an extremely quiet night due in large part to the weather and the fact that the university had just started Spring Break so there were very few students that had not left for warmer exotic locations. I was sitting in the briefing room at the station working on a PowerPoint for one of the command staff people, slowly but surely getting through this tedious task. I'm only have listening to my radio, I figure that if they need me the dispatcher knows I'm 50 feet down the hall from her and she has my cell phone number. I hear dispatch call 2 officers and send them to the local stop and rob. The call is, two students just came into the store and were going to attempt to buy beer but the clerk told them to get out of her store before the had the chance to make the attempt. Why 2 officers for this? It was that slow of a night. The two officers get there and the clerk tells them that she thought it was the same two students that tried to use a fake I.D. the night before and that's why she told them to leave before the got the chance to even put the case of beer on the counter. These two officers are the same two that dealt with the fake I.D. issue and are familiar with the two....felons?....no, miscreants?.....no, underage beer drinkers. What ever you wish to call them, they are no where around when the officers show up at the store. The clerk gives the general direction that they ran off into and that is enough to start the great manhunt. Yes, I said manhunt. The officers put out over the radio that it is the same two students that they dealt with the night before and that they ran off in the general direction of the dorm where they reside. Now, if you run out of this store, there is really only two directions that you can run, and either of them will be in the general direction of this particular dorm. They now have my interest. Not because this is a horrible horrible crime that must be stopped at all costs, but because I can't believe how big this is snowballing into. There is a perimeter set up. They close in on the dorm. No sign of the perps yet. They leave a man outside to watch the windows of the dorm room just in case the fleeing felons try to make a break for it and four more make entry into the dorm. Before the start up the staircase to go up the three floors to where one of the students from the night before lives, they call dispatch and order the air cleared. Which means no one can now use the radio on the main channel even if they have a real issue come up.

They creep up the staircase ever so stealthily, constantly chattering on the radio that they just ordered cleared. This little act elicited a very loud cursing from the dispatcher, not over the air, I could hear her from the briefing room where I was laughing hysterically. I had to go check on her to make sure she wasn't armed or anything, and besides, this was getting funnier and funnier all the time. While we are sitting there talking, they are still just a chattering away on the radio. Finally one of them decides that they no longer need to have the air closed and calls to give it back. The dispatcher keyed up and said, "Attention all units that HAVE NOT already been talking constantly on channel one may resume doing so.". She was a little miffed. There were only 10 of us on duty at this time. I was in dispatch, three were sitting in the emergency room at the hospital talking up the nurses, and the rest were surrounding this dorm room.

They have yelled at the closed door, they have beat on the door and demanded that it be opened and for the occupants to come out. They have had no satisfaction. No one seen the two students they are looking for go into this room. NO ONE. Yet for some reason they are convinced one hundred percent that the two scallywags are inside and are refusing to obey a direct order given to them by law enforcement personnel. It would be funny enough had they just ended it here, but alas, they did not. One of them is now off to the Criminal Justice Center to obtain warrants so that they can make entry into the dorm room and arrest these two menaces to society. While the one officer is off to obtain the paper, the rest hold the perimeter around the dorm. This is where I decided that I must go over in person and make fun of everyone involved.

When I finally make my way over to the area about an hour has passed by since they set up their little perimeter. The first officer I encounter is the one we call Po, or Kung Fu Panda. He is standing out in the cold rain, winter coat buttoned all the way to the top, hood up and cinched tightly around his face and he is bouncing from one foot to the other in an attempt to stay warm. He never looked more like a panda bear than he did right at this moment. A fact that I made sure did not elude his attention. I made fun of him for about ten minutes and then bid him farewell so I could go inside and make fun of the Lt. that is in charge of this little operation. I didn't get a chance to make it upstairs because I ran into several students that had not left for Spring Break and that I just happened to know. They were a tad bit curious as to what was going on, so I shared the story with them. They too found it to be rather humorous they way something so minor was being dealt with like a hostage situation. They knew the guy that they were searching for and they had some wonderful information that no one else seem to take the time to ask for. The fellow they were searching for, the one that they have now attained warrants for, the one they have by this time have wasted three hours of their lives on, had left for home in Florida early that day. He is not even there.

I asked the officers, all of them, are you sure that they are in that room. They all say that they are 100% positive that they are in that room, they have heard them talking, heard one of them coughing and even heard one of them tell them to "go away".

They get the door opened and they make a dynamic entry....they search left....they search right...they search the clothes hamper and the bean bag chair. It is a 20 x 20 dorm room and there are 5 officers searching it. There. Is. No one. There. I am about to die of laughter at this point. I don't know if its possible to die of laughter, but I was coming close if it is. I finally ask, "how do you think they got out?". They have no answer for this. There is only one door, five of them were watching that, there is just the one window, Po is still in the rain watching that. I gave them a plausible escape, as plausible as anything else they have done up to this point, the old Bugs Bunny magic hole trick. The one he pulls out of his pocket and throws at something to make a door and once he leaves through it he puts back in his pocket.

Then they went to the other "suspects" dorm to see if maybe they ran over there and were hiding. They find the other suspects room mate still there. He lets them look in the room for the two fugitives. They are not there. While they were searching though the room mate has called his friend, who is in New Jersey with his family. He even told the officers before he let them in that his room mate had left early that morning for home, he even took him to the airport. He let the Lt. talk to the kid on the phone, he was told to bring back proof that he was in New Jersey on that day.

Now it was time for me to go home and I did not wish to hang around just to see how this could get any worse. I waited until I came back in that night and I asked one of the original responding officers how it finally ended. She told me that once the manager of the stop and rob got to work later that morning, she went over and had her pull the tape for her so she could look at it. This is something that should have been done before warrants were obtained I thought. Once she looked at it, she said that it was NOT the same two students from the night before. OOps! So a massive manhunt for two kids that were no where near the area, warrants taken out on them for something they did not do and poor Po wasting all that time standing in the freezing cold rain. You tell me I don't work with the Keystone Cops or the Reno 911 crew. They can be entertaining at times, but they had sure better go get those warrants nulled before something not funny happens.

For the last several weeks the kingdom has been silent. Due to the winter break as the politically correct people call it, or as the rest of us call it, Christmas break. While all the loyal subjects of the kingdom are scattered to the far ends of the earth enjoying their break, I too get to take a break. My last official act before I left for my vacation of sorts was to dechristmas the area. The Queen of the realm asked that I please remind everyone to turn off all Christmas lights before they left for the break. She asked me this the day after they had all left, yet a day before I left, therefore I spent my last night at work doing the Grinch thing. I felt like such a scrooge doing this deed. The kingdom was brightly lite and joyous looking when I started the night and when I ended my night, it was completely dark. Bah! Humbug! After this, I decided I'd go see the real Grinch in his Ice Kingdom. Man is it ever cold in this place! It was a very interesting trip, here are some of the many pictures from that trip. Now you can see a lot of what I saw and you don't have to walk around in -5 degree temperatures to see it.

Now that break is over we begin a new year with the final round of sorority rush and the fraternities starting with their pledging. How much longer until spring break?......