Page 114 - NIXBOOK

Me at the office, seeing one of the clerks is doing a background check fingerprint card for a teacher. “Sue! I didn’t know they
were letting you fingerprint people again!” (Sue would invariably sigh at that moment, knowing what was coming) “Have they
taught you now how to fingerprint people without breaking their fingers?”

At least a dozen times in my career, while driving a prisoner to the jail, they’d fall asleep in the back seat and slump down or
slump over out of my sight. Every single time I’d start worrying that they were dying of a drug overdose; many times I’d have to
yell at them or pull over and get out to check on them. Took me a long time to figure it out but eventually I started belting them
in pretty tight with the seatbelts to keep them slipping down out of view. I’m glad to report the number of dead prisoners I
brought to the jail was zero.

Every officer has certain pet peeve traffic infractions that they love catching people do because it tops their list of things that
drive them crazy. The things that really drove me crazy? Of course I have a list! It starts with drivers who throw cigarette butts
out of their cars. Actually can broken down into two categories; those who drop their cigarettes, maybe trying to be discreet,
and then there are the assholes who flagrantly flick their butts out 10 feet away. God help those people if I see them do that.
Actually I began to see a lot less of that as the years went by; when cigarettes started to get expensive people hung on to them a
lot more and smoked them all the way to the end. Next up: drivers who make turns without using their turn signals. And drivers
who blindly back out of driveways or side streets into traffic. Pedestrians who walk or jog on roadway shoulders when there is a
perfectly good sidewalk two feet away. Drivers who turn off of main roads onto side roads or driveways and get about halfway
through their turn and then slow way down or even stop with the ass end of their car still hanging out in traffic and when I’m
behind them and they’re turning but then they stop and they’re in my way. I HATE that!

As long as I’m here complaining about drivers, let’s discuss People Who Freak when an emergency vehicles passes them; could
be a police car, or a fighter truck or ambulance… and they pull over to the LEFT side of the road. No! Don’t do that, it’s NOT
helpful! You pull over to the RIGHT side, okay? And motorists who decided to go to a sudden dead stop IN THE ROADWAY.
Also no. And then there are the folks who pull over onto the right shoulder, but don’t bother to slow down in the slightest.
Which is pretty damn inconvenient when I need to make a right turn but they’re pacing alongside me on the shoulder, ffs.