Cops. Gotta love ‘em.

A douche cop might also give you a ticket when you even consider going five over the speed limit, yet miss the piece-of-shit going FIFTY over, but — HEY! — cops can’t be perfect, right?

 

Oh, and a douche cop might give you a ticket for jaywalking to the tune of $65. At night. When there is no traffic. And while that douche cop is writing said ticket, he will probably miss the punk-ass emmer-effer who is obviously up to no good as he slouches across the street in his hoody carrying a paper bag. But again, cops can’t be expected to get it right ALL THE TIME.

 

And if you’re military? Forget it. A douche cops wants nothing to do with you, because that’s what MPs and SPs and tribunals and Article 15s are for. A douche cop won’t give a shit who broke into your house because that, friends, is an SEP { Somebody Else’s Problem }.

 

So it’s not that I’m bitter or anything. {* rolls eyes *}

 

But look. I’m also respectful, okay? Seriously, I get it. I really do. Cops are great.

 

When my adult son was but a wee lad, lo those many years ago, he came home from school one day talking about how much cops suck, how they don’t do anything to help and they only eat donuts. I reamed his ass.

 

I explained that cops do a whole lot of dangerous stuff that he, as a child, didn’t know anything about.

 

I told him that cops perform death-defying acts of heroism, and that if they want to treat themselves to a donut during off-times, they were well within their rights, and that really we should be saying, “THANK YOU FOR YOUR ACTS OF BRAVERY,” every time a cop came into our view.

 

I asked him where he had heard such an insulting thing, and he answered that the kids at school all said that cops were lazy dumb-dumbs. I told him that the kids at school were the lazy dumb-dumbs for passing around such crap.

 

This was pre-9/11 so I didn’t have that excellent example on which to fall, so I talked about how awesome it was that he was safe to walk to school. I said, “Did you ever stop to consider all the gang members and drug dealers who DON’T attack you in this neighborhood? I’m gonna clue you in — that stuff didn’t happen by magic.”

 

We talked further about other crimes he didn’t have to witness on a regular basis. We talked about other crimes and scary activities that went on in other cities. It was a great teaching moment, and from then until a few months after he graduated from high school, my son carried a great respect for cops, douche or otherwise.

 

Someone commits cruelty or physical violence or illegal activity in your presence — who ya gonna call? Not ghostbusters, that’s for sure! Cheese it, it’s the cops!

 

I say he carried a great respect for cops “until a few months after he graduated,” because an incident occurred at that point to counter my lesson.

 

My son was part of a mischievous group of guys who liked to TP yards at night. If you aren’t familiar with this activity — and being uncool in school, I was not, so no recrimination here! — the gaggle of guys dresses all in black and whichever of their group is absent that evening gets HIT.

 

He and his parents will awaken to toilet paper streaming from their trees. It’s usually met with hilarity and laughter. Pictures of the mess are posted on the webby-webs with pride, in a “Look what happened to me!” kind of way. Harmless and fun.

 

Sometimes the boys would hit the house of a certain girl, usually someone who was “cool” with them and in on the jokes and shenanigans. Again, harmless and fun.

 

Except — and there are always exceptions, damn it, always someone who takes things way too far and crosses the line and makes it bad for everyone — another group started dressing in black and making house calls as well. Only they weren’t out for the funny TP job. They broke mailboxes and stole yard ornaments.

 

Still kind of funny, if you ask me, but definitely less than harmless, and actually somewhat dangerous. Also? A crime. Specifically, theft and property damage. Which we know because my son and his bestie got tagged by a douche cop, a year after these events, as the perpetrators.

 

The boys had two options. Turn in the rogue group, thereby labeling themselves for all eternity as narcs — I mean we’re talking about adults now, 18-year-old hoodlums with the likelihood to hold grudges against life-altering arrests. Grownups with long memories and short tempers. That makes for seriously bad networking in a small town.

 

The second option was to take the fall. So like true good guys, that’s what they did. Fresh out of high school, their very first semester into college, my son and his bestie now have a record. Not only are the citizens safe from danger, but the trees are safe from toilet paper.

 

Except, the stupid trees were already safe, because the group had disbanded shortly after graduation to move their separate ways. So the whole thing was pointless. No lessons were learned here. One douche cop is happy in his little cubicle, having supposedly caught his perps. That is all.

 

So my son now recognizes, like his mother, that cops are big emmer-effers. I can no longer protect him from that.

 

Here’s another example of douche cop behavior. Last week I wrote a check at our local deli in the amount of $28. I didn’t know my hubz got gas that same day. Admittedly, we should have moved money over from our savings account to cover this potentiality, but being human, we fucked up.

 

The deli is like two doors down, and we shop there on a regular basis. I’m talking, pizza once a week, sandwich stuffs (bread, ham, and Swiss cheese) sometimes MORE than once a week, hamburger and other meats, snacks (chips and ice cream), produce like tomatoes and potatoes, and staples like eggs and milk.

 

So when I say we shop there on a regular basis, I’m saying we probably dump a $500-$800 into their monthly budget. Maybe that isn’t a huge amount of money, but it ain’t small beans, either. The fact that they are so close to home makes the convenience unbeatable. There are many days that, after I pick my baby girl up from the bus stop, she and I will mosey their direction simply to enjoy an ice cream cone. We love them!

 

But no more. The check I wrote bounced. That sucks. Of course I have every intention of paying it back, in addition to the bad check fee, along with a sincere apology. It was never my intention to NOT pay them. Obviously — I mean, like I said, they are a huge presence in our lives.

 

Instead of calling us about the check — instead of mailing a notice or taping a letter to our door — they called a douche cop to come let me know about my “federal crime”.

 

So there I am, sitting at my desk, working on my book, when an unexpected knock at the door pulled me from my seat. The douche cop attempted to bully me, but I was having none of it.

 

After going on for ten minutes telling me all about my horrendous crime, the whole time acting like he had just caught a fucking rapist, he asked my name.

 

When I laughed and responded,

“You have the check, so you already have my name!”

he got all rude and said,

“I don’t understand why you’re being so hostile.”

 

I said,

“I don’t understand why there’s a cop on my porch harassing me about a $28 check that was written less than a week ago.”

 

“Writing bad checks is a crime,”

said he, oh wise catcher-of-bad-guys.

 

“Look,”

said I, full of impatience and done with the nonsense.

“I made a mistake and I will fix it. End of story.”

 

“Then we’re good. The sooner you fix it, that means I don’t have to file any paperwork and pursue this matter.”

 

Are you fucking kidding me? No paperwork filed — that means the douche cop was off duty, and he wasn’t even there in an official capacity. So fuck that.

 

And fuck the deli. Obviously someone there has a douche cop friend or relative and decided to send him over to scare me into paying up. Which I had already intended to do, being an honest citizen and whatnot. And being a lover of local ice cream cones and pizza. Assholes.

 

Now I take that shit personally. So after I give them their money, including the $20 bad-check-fee to cover their $5 bad-deposit-fee (thereby assisting them in making an additional $15 off of the entire emotionally dreadful ordeal), I will never shop there again. Which breaks my heart.

 

Except we’re moving soon, so fuck them anyway.

 

So there is always a douche cop story.

I have plenty more. I wrote kindly once about a cop — the only nice cop I’ve ever met — but he was certainly the exception. Plus, he thought we were from Kentucky due to the plates on our rental car, so he likely thought we were too stupid to bother with.

 

Okay, one more example of a douche cop before wrapping up this long-winded essay.

 

Back when my hubz and I first married — our first year in bliss, living in a broken-down, money trap of a house and dealing with stressors like my kids getting used to a new dad, my kids getting used to a new school, and all of us still getting used to a new neighborhood — we may have gotten into a fairly heated argument. I can’t even remember now what it was about. Doesn’t matter.

 

I have always hated that when spouses argue, it’s typically the husband who walks out and goes for a drive, leaving the wife home to cook dinner and take care of the kids. That shit is fucked up. So when we argued that particular time, it was a race to see who could get to the car first.

 

My hubz won the race.

 

Not to be deterred, I jumped on the hood. I yelled, “You’re not leaving me here to cook dinner. Hell no! If anyone is driving away it’s gonna be me! Get your ass out of that car!” — or something to that effect.

 

He slowly put the car into reverse. With me still on the hood. I was incredulous. And then I thought it was funny. So I turned into King Kong and beat my fists on my chest. He thought it was funny, too. He stopped the car and got out. We both laughed at our stupidity, kissed, hugged, made up. End of story.

 

Except someone called a douche cop to come visit us about all that domestic violence going on in our backyard. I mean — thank you for looking out for me, neighbor, but you had it wrong that time. The douche cop walked up as we were locked in an embrace and proceeded to harass us, acting like one of us was about to get arrested or something. It was the most ridiculous thing ever. If that had happened in a movie, it would be a love scene of epic proportions. The douche cop failed to see the romance. Asshole.

 

Having just made a lengthy complaint about all the ways in which I detest cops, let me reassure you that I still have respect for their profession. I don’t have to like each douche cop on an individual basis. As long as they continue to be on the receiving end of emergency 9-1-1 calls, they are all still aces in my book.

 

So, douche cop, I still plan to pass your levy. Even though you keep acting like my family is filled with rapists and pedophiles, I recognize that you would still put your life on the line for me if necessary. Go ahead and eat that donut. Hell, I’ll buy you one myself. Just as soon as I pay off our local deli.

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