Page 297 - NIXBOOK

One day when I was in the chief’s office talking to him about something I was glancing at his bookshelf which had a variety of
things displayed; some family photos, a collection of challenge coins, a yellow painted brick from the FBI leadership class he
somehow graduated from, and things like that. And I came up with an amusing thought: If I sneak into the chief’s office and
slip some other random memento onto his shelf when he was away, how long would it take for him to notice it? Specifically, the
whole idea was based on the amusing premise that he’d be sitting at his desk, maybe having a meeting with some state
representative or senator or sheriff and he’d look over at his shelf and suddenly notice some new really stupid, really goofy
looking thing among all his professional memorabilia. Hopefully, something ridiculous that his visitor would notice first? And
so from that thought was born an operation that I carried out for well over a year. My source for artifacts (yes, plural) was the
large Goodwill thrift store in Silverdale. Like just about every thrift store, there was a section where knick knacks were for sale;
stupid little shelf decorations, a good percentage of which probably came from some dead grandmas house where the family
had to clean all the junk out and send boxes of crap to the Goodwill and there was always a pretty good supply of dozens of
really, stupid things to choose from; I usually picked out a weird animal figurine or some kind of little porcelain figurine that
was crudely painted. If I could put a real head scratcher thing in there, I did. I planted probably close to a dozen in there. Like
a little figurine of a cat licking its paw next to a large psychedelic mushroom. The chief actually kept a few of them; he was
obliging with the humor. But he did get rid of the large porcelain hand that had a naked cherub hugging it. Eventually I settled
on a very specific theme of getting him figurines of animals or people bent over. Like a playful puppy with its tail in the air. Gets
a LOT funnier when displayed backwards. He got a lot of those; like the little girl ballerina leaning over with her skirt up in the
air. Got a LOT funnier when posed on his shelf backward. Sometimes when he noticed something new he’d snap a photo of it
and send it to my phone, and I’d always text back “You’re just noticing that NOW? It’s been there for over a month!” which was
sometimes true, sometimes not. Also one time I added into his office a very large picture frame of a schematic drawing, of a
crane barge. Like a giant blueprint. Somebody had been very proud of it so they had it framed; I suppose it was originally in
some engineer’s office or something. When I saw it at Goodwill one day and the price was only $10 bucks, I snatched it up. It
had a nice frame and was covered in glass; nice high quality. Oh it was 4 feet high and 4 feet wide. It barely fit in my car. Chief
had no idea what to do with it because it was so stupid large and looked kind of valuable, so he couldn’t just throw it away. That
thing was in his office for a few months; I’m sure he shook his head more than a few times at it.

The very first drunk driver I had ever caught had, in his car with him already…his lawyer. When I told the drunk driver to get
out of his car, his lawyer/girlfriend told him that he didn’t have to. I insisted to him that he had to. She insisted he had the right
NOT to. That poor guy was in a tough spot then, but as he told me later, he could see the look on my face was pretty serious so
he decided he’d better listen to me. I arrested him for DUI, and for better or worse his girlfriend (who was indeed a criminal
defense attorney) was with us for the entire process. Did I mention this was my first-ever drunk driving arrest, which in and of
itself would have been pretty nerve racking but mine was ten times worse because his stupid lawyer was there watching
everything and butting in. By the way, her advice to him that he did not have to get out of his car when ordered to do so by the
police – uh, yeah that was terrible legal advice. Good thing he listened to me instead. Fast forward 15 years: that lawyer woman
actually got elected as a county Superior Court Judge, go figure.