Cars:
I posted a couple weeks ago how everything I touch seems to break. It continues.
Thursday night, I was driving around town when the temperature gauge on my car started to rise. I pulled over and started checking it. I pulled out the oil dip-stick, but because the car was hot, it wasn't showing right. I just KNEW I'd screwed up another car and I was fixin' to be fired. I was just about in tears. So I called Mike and he said he'd meet me where I was and bring some oil. Just in case.
So he showed up and said it wasn't the oil, but that I was out of coolant. So I put what I had in my water bottle in there and drove to the Enterprise Leasing where I knew there was a hose handy and filled up the reservoir. It was good for the rest of the night.
I got up on Friday morning and checked it again before coming to work. It was really low again, so I drove to the shop. It has a leak at the intake manifold (whatever that is) and was pumping it out as fast as they put it in. And of course they didn't have the part to fix it. So they gave me a spare.
The spare didn't want to start, but it finally did. The mechanic said the battery just needed to charge since it had been sitting for a week. Sounded hinkey, but okay, no problem. I might have turned it off twice, but it started right back up and I didn't think anything else about it.
Today, I got in it and drove to the station for roll call with no problems. After I shut it off, it wouldn't start back up. It needed a new battery.
Batteries:
Dead batteries seem to be the story of my life. First my car last week, then the spare car...
My hand-held radio batteries give me fits. I try to run them all the way down before I put them on the charger, but that isn't always possible. But they should hold a charge that would last at least 10 hours, right? Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
My biggest concern is that when the battery decides it's ready to go, it gives me no warning. My radio just stops transmitting! Does anyone else see the officer-safety issue here?
And then my flashlight battery died last night. Since I was in a spare, I didn't have my other one with me. Do you think IT gave me warning? No.
Mike and I were checking some barns at the local feed store when it conked out on me. I was able to borrow one for the rest of the shift to use while we trekked around town looking for the homeless people who are burglarizing the heck out of one section.
THEN, to make matters worse, I was getting ready to come in today and getting my stuff together. I grabbed by flashlight charger so I could charge it since I forgot last night. I could not find the stupid thing ANYWHERE! I looked in the car. I looked in the house. I spent the entire day disgusted because I THOUGHT I had it when I got home last night. It belongs to me, not the department. And it is a VERY expensive flashlight. But a VERY good one. I even went back by the house during my shift to look again. No luck. I looked under my bed. I looked in the armoire where I keep my gun belt and I looked behind it. Three TIMES! I drove back to the barn we were checking to see if I lost it there. When I got home tonight, I decided to look one more time.at the house. This time I looked UNDER the armoire. HALLELUJAH!
I truly felt like I'm losing my mind!!! I was all kind of out of sorts over this flashlight. I know that sounds silly, but it was one more thing that was out of order. Because I'm driving a spare car, I don't have my printer. I don't have all of my equipment, including my spare flashlight and extra forms. It is really frustrating. Kinda like trying to do art without gel medium....
IBS:
I haven't been feeling very well for over a month. It's my IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). A couple weeks ago, I went to the doctor because it was so bad, I had thought I needed to go to the hospital at one point. She gave me a new drug regiment, to add to what I already take. And I started to feel better. That lasted about a week and a half. Now I'm back to where I started.
Burglaries:
So today, I'm really in a foul mood. Missing flashlight and I just don't feel very well. So what happened next just pissed me off.
I don't get mad easily. I'm usually on an even keel. But the guys have noticed I haven't felt well and I've been a little cranky. They've said something to me. I can admit it. These burglaries we've been having - 19 in the last two weeks, all within a quarter mile radius of a busy intersection - are really getting annoying. They smash the window of a business and grab change, or a gumball machine. Penny ante stuff. Stuff they don't have to pawn. Of course the brass is on our butts about it. We literally turned around last night and the Chief had come out. He said he heard the three go out within a 30 minute time frame, so he put on his uniform and came out to help us look for and watch for the perpetrators.
We've been looking all week. I'll bet you that I have walked and hiked between five and seven miles this week. Literally "hiked." Woods, fields, along railroad tracks. Up and down hill. Through streets and parking lots. Barns, abandoned houses, and sheds. Daylight and darkness. I am exhausted. Let me also add that Mike and I are the two oldest people on our shift. He has me beat by about 4 months, but he and I do the most checking on-foot of anybody.
Today, Johnny stopped a truck and the driver was acting kinda funny, so he called for back-up. Jimmy and I were close, so we went over to help. I ended up being there for about an hour or so, and we weren't far at all from our burglary area. I knew that if the bad-guy(s) were at the motel across the street, they knew that three units were tied up on this traffic stop. So I went back in service and started checking the area. I came to one of the businesses that had been hit last night, and a green pick-up truck pulled out of the parking lot. We were told to stop anything that was in the area. I tried to run the tag, but the system was down. So I put on my blue-lights and gave dispatch the information on the vehicle, and my location.
The vehicle doesn't stop. I hit the siren. The vehicle doesn't stop. I hit it again. Nothing. He has to know I'm back there. Hell, he'd seen me just before I got behind him at the business. So I tell dispatch he's not stopping. Units start my way. Then one of the morning watch units (that's the over-night shift) gets on the radio and says that's him I'm trying to stop. Apparently I didn't see the info on the chat saying that he was in plain clothes in the area because I was out of the car with Johnny and Jimmy. I don't even TRY to keep up with what vehicles they are using for this kind of stuff, and I knew Crime Suppression was off tonight. My question, and my Sergeant backed me up on this all the way, is: Why didn't he just go ahead and pull over and I would have realized what the deal was and that would have been the end of it? The answer: He was being a smart-ass. Even his Lieutenant, who would normally join in the "fun" wasn't laughing when I went in to the station right afterward.
Of course I will NEVER hear the end of it. Especially in light of my stopping the Chief back in May. (Click here for that one.) I'm just not in the mood for it today. One of the guys on my shift - who I don't particularly like - started in. When I pointed out to him that I was out of the car WORKING, and implied that he doesn't, he shut the heck up.
Factor in PMS, and I can tell you it's been a shitty week. Thank God today was Friday!
But it's only 27 days until Paris!
I posted a couple weeks ago how everything I touch seems to break. It continues.
Thursday night, I was driving around town when the temperature gauge on my car started to rise. I pulled over and started checking it. I pulled out the oil dip-stick, but because the car was hot, it wasn't showing right. I just KNEW I'd screwed up another car and I was fixin' to be fired. I was just about in tears. So I called Mike and he said he'd meet me where I was and bring some oil. Just in case.
So he showed up and said it wasn't the oil, but that I was out of coolant. So I put what I had in my water bottle in there and drove to the Enterprise Leasing where I knew there was a hose handy and filled up the reservoir. It was good for the rest of the night.
I got up on Friday morning and checked it again before coming to work. It was really low again, so I drove to the shop. It has a leak at the intake manifold (whatever that is) and was pumping it out as fast as they put it in. And of course they didn't have the part to fix it. So they gave me a spare.
The spare didn't want to start, but it finally did. The mechanic said the battery just needed to charge since it had been sitting for a week. Sounded hinkey, but okay, no problem. I might have turned it off twice, but it started right back up and I didn't think anything else about it.
Today, I got in it and drove to the station for roll call with no problems. After I shut it off, it wouldn't start back up. It needed a new battery.
Batteries:
Dead batteries seem to be the story of my life. First my car last week, then the spare car...
My hand-held radio batteries give me fits. I try to run them all the way down before I put them on the charger, but that isn't always possible. But they should hold a charge that would last at least 10 hours, right? Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
My biggest concern is that when the battery decides it's ready to go, it gives me no warning. My radio just stops transmitting! Does anyone else see the officer-safety issue here?
And then my flashlight battery died last night. Since I was in a spare, I didn't have my other one with me. Do you think IT gave me warning? No.
Mike and I were checking some barns at the local feed store when it conked out on me. I was able to borrow one for the rest of the shift to use while we trekked around town looking for the homeless people who are burglarizing the heck out of one section.
THEN, to make matters worse, I was getting ready to come in today and getting my stuff together. I grabbed by flashlight charger so I could charge it since I forgot last night. I could not find the stupid thing ANYWHERE! I looked in the car. I looked in the house. I spent the entire day disgusted because I THOUGHT I had it when I got home last night. It belongs to me, not the department. And it is a VERY expensive flashlight. But a VERY good one. I even went back by the house during my shift to look again. No luck. I looked under my bed. I looked in the armoire where I keep my gun belt and I looked behind it. Three TIMES! I drove back to the barn we were checking to see if I lost it there. When I got home tonight, I decided to look one more time.at the house. This time I looked UNDER the armoire. HALLELUJAH!
I truly felt like I'm losing my mind!!! I was all kind of out of sorts over this flashlight. I know that sounds silly, but it was one more thing that was out of order. Because I'm driving a spare car, I don't have my printer. I don't have all of my equipment, including my spare flashlight and extra forms. It is really frustrating. Kinda like trying to do art without gel medium....
IBS:
I haven't been feeling very well for over a month. It's my IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). A couple weeks ago, I went to the doctor because it was so bad, I had thought I needed to go to the hospital at one point. She gave me a new drug regiment, to add to what I already take. And I started to feel better. That lasted about a week and a half. Now I'm back to where I started.
Burglaries:
So today, I'm really in a foul mood. Missing flashlight and I just don't feel very well. So what happened next just pissed me off.
I don't get mad easily. I'm usually on an even keel. But the guys have noticed I haven't felt well and I've been a little cranky. They've said something to me. I can admit it. These burglaries we've been having - 19 in the last two weeks, all within a quarter mile radius of a busy intersection - are really getting annoying. They smash the window of a business and grab change, or a gumball machine. Penny ante stuff. Stuff they don't have to pawn. Of course the brass is on our butts about it. We literally turned around last night and the Chief had come out. He said he heard the three go out within a 30 minute time frame, so he put on his uniform and came out to help us look for and watch for the perpetrators.
We've been looking all week. I'll bet you that I have walked and hiked between five and seven miles this week. Literally "hiked." Woods, fields, along railroad tracks. Up and down hill. Through streets and parking lots. Barns, abandoned houses, and sheds. Daylight and darkness. I am exhausted. Let me also add that Mike and I are the two oldest people on our shift. He has me beat by about 4 months, but he and I do the most checking on-foot of anybody.
Today, Johnny stopped a truck and the driver was acting kinda funny, so he called for back-up. Jimmy and I were close, so we went over to help. I ended up being there for about an hour or so, and we weren't far at all from our burglary area. I knew that if the bad-guy(s) were at the motel across the street, they knew that three units were tied up on this traffic stop. So I went back in service and started checking the area. I came to one of the businesses that had been hit last night, and a green pick-up truck pulled out of the parking lot. We were told to stop anything that was in the area. I tried to run the tag, but the system was down. So I put on my blue-lights and gave dispatch the information on the vehicle, and my location.
The vehicle doesn't stop. I hit the siren. The vehicle doesn't stop. I hit it again. Nothing. He has to know I'm back there. Hell, he'd seen me just before I got behind him at the business. So I tell dispatch he's not stopping. Units start my way. Then one of the morning watch units (that's the over-night shift) gets on the radio and says that's him I'm trying to stop. Apparently I didn't see the info on the chat saying that he was in plain clothes in the area because I was out of the car with Johnny and Jimmy. I don't even TRY to keep up with what vehicles they are using for this kind of stuff, and I knew Crime Suppression was off tonight. My question, and my Sergeant backed me up on this all the way, is: Why didn't he just go ahead and pull over and I would have realized what the deal was and that would have been the end of it? The answer: He was being a smart-ass. Even his Lieutenant, who would normally join in the "fun" wasn't laughing when I went in to the station right afterward.
Of course I will NEVER hear the end of it. Especially in light of my stopping the Chief back in May. (Click here for that one.) I'm just not in the mood for it today. One of the guys on my shift - who I don't particularly like - started in. When I pointed out to him that I was out of the car WORKING, and implied that he doesn't, he shut the heck up.
Factor in PMS, and I can tell you it's been a shitty week. Thank God today was Friday!
But it's only 27 days until Paris!
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4 comments:
like I said before, you are in desperate need of a vacation. Paris is just around the corner. I can't wait. We can go off and leave all the drama behind us. Don't let the young tikes push you around. Show them who's boss.
Darya, here's your mantra "Paris...Paris...Paris...Paris..." It will make your tummy relax in anticipation of all that good food! jood
Your blog made me smile, my husband is an ex-policeman and also ex-smoke diver. Once on shift he pulled over a limo that was speeding. He asked the driver for his license etc. and Senator Trent Lott spoke up from the back seat and said "Sir do you know who I am?" And my husband said yes Sir and will you just sit back in your seat please." When he first pulled the limo over he didn't know who it was.....but he was cook as a cucumber...and when the driver came back through town he paid his ticket!!
Thank heavens you have Paris to focus on!
Joanne
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