Page 205 - NIXBOOK

Me, in the patrol officer’s squad room office complaining about the old woman who had just called 911 for a police response
regarding an Important Safety Issue. She had called to report the large white painted arrows on the pavement - the ones showing
drivers which way to go – those arrows were getting faded. The ones in the post office parking lot. So sooner or later somebody
was going to not see those arrows and then there would certainly be an accident in the post office parking lot, officer. She wanted
me to Do Something About That. My response was to complain to my coworker, who quickly changed my perspective: “Dude,
if this is the worst thing we have to deal with today, then it’s a pretty good shift. Things could be like a thousand times worse
than this you know,” and I had to immediately agree with him; Lord knows how many cops that day across the country were
dealing with homicides and suicides and all sort of horrible violent crimes against innocent people…yeah….a call about faded
arrows in the post office parking lot was definitely not worthy enough for me to complain about!

I get dispatched to an apparently suicidal guy running around in traffic. When I find him he’s actually laying down in the middle
of a busy street; cars are swerving around him, thwarting his attempt to die. When I get close to him he wants no part of me so
he starts running, hoping maybe a passing motorist will take him out. I have to get another officer to me help me tackle him
and keep him safe from himself.

I pulled over a teen girl for a traffic violation; I can’t remember what but I do remember the second she handed me her drivers
license I just froze when I saw it. Because back in those days, the Washington State Department of Licensing made up drivers
license numbers with a combination of letters and numbers, and the first letters were always the first 5 of the last name, then 2
letters for first name and then middle initial. This poor girl, whose last name was Fagan, had a first name of Alyssa and then a
middle name that started with an L. Which meant her DOL # was FAGANAL followed by some random numbers. I felt so bad
for her!