Page 121 - NIXBOOK

A house caught on fire, as they sometimes do, and half of it burned up. The jeep in the garage had also caught on fire and was
completely destroyed. The fire department guys had surrounded the house with hoses and water and drowned it and put out
the fire. The poor Jeep hulk, first having its protective layer of paint burnt off, then got doused with water. The result was that
by the next morning it was completely rust colored; because bare steel that gets wet will oxidize surprisingly quickly.

Grandpa turned his back on 71 year old grandma in the WalMart and she escaped from the store, because her Alzheimer’s was
kicking in and she was losing her mind. Once out in the parking lot she forgot pretty much everything, so she decided to pick a
direction and start walking. Which turned out to be her speciality; when she was found 2 hours later by one of the almost-dozen
police officers dispatched to find her, she was over 8 miles away (!) and still walking.

Girl called 911 because her brother was breaking things in his bedroom. He was 23. Not pleased to see the police show up and he
did not want to answer any questions or make any statements. He had some mental health issues. Anyway, no crime had been
committed so we called the girl’s mother who was at work and reported all was calm now and we were leaving. The mother had
a request for us though: “Before you go, can you tell my daughter she needs to be going to school?” Well that’s not really our
job, mom, but okay. I looked at the girl and aksed “What grade are you in?” She looked down at the ground and mumbled “Ninth
grade..” I should mention this was all going down at 1 pm on a school day. “And you’re not at school because why?” She mumbled
to us “I just don’t like going to school.” Myself and the other officer lit into her, and made her regret ever calling 911.

My collar microphone, clipped to my shoulder lapel and connected by a cord to my portable radio, was in a perfect place to have
a conflict with the office telephone handset I was using; while yapping into the phone with somebody about something, the
phone handset pressed into the microphone transmit button, very effectively broadcasting my conversation out onto the police
radio airwaves for everybody to hear, and I of course was oblivious. It happens. In fact, the percentage of cops who have had an
“open mic” or “hot mic” experience like that at some point in their careers: about 100 percent.