Training Day

Well, Training Month actually. I had been tasked for the past few weeks with the training of the newest PCO. So, besides all the usual routine activities, a few unusual things occurred and I will relate them to you now. Please sit down. You may not believe some of this stuff.

1). We found a car with a fake year tab that was so bad, we both spotted it while driving by at 20 miles an hour. We stopped to cite him and tow him (his car registration was two years out of date), he came out of his house, and we had to call a cop to our location. He made the guy sit on the curb and watch us. His story was so stupid, it was all we could do not to laugh.

2). While driving near a liquor store slash market, we noticed a guy who had just opened a beer. The beer was spilling out over the top of the bottle and his pants were falling off exposing his naked buttocks (I may have to start adding pictures to this blog just because of this guy). If that weren't enough, he sat on the hot sidewalk under a sign that essentially called him a clown. We laughed and laughed this time.

3). We saw a guy riding a bicycle while carrying a cup of coffee on his head! It must have been hot because he had his head wrapped in a t-shirt like a turban. Don't know how he managed not to spill any of it.

4). We encountered an older gent driving down the up ramp in one of the parking structures. It was all we could do to convince him he was doing the wrong thing. Sheesh!

5). We found a car in the sweeper zone with a dead pigeon on the hood. The scary part was, the bird had no head! Was it a Mafia-like message for the offender not to park there anymore? Or just some red-tailed hawk's idea of a sick joke. We got out of there quickly.

6). We found a car full of trash (the driver said they were recyclables) that was double parked in the roadway. Let me explain this: the trash was completely stuffing the inside, of course, but it was also on the hood and the trunk. Piled high! The car had no plates but did have a red number from the DMV in the rear window. He had to scatter trash off the trunk and onto the road in order for us to see it. "Are you going to give me a ticket?" Moron.

And finally, 7). We cited a guy's friend who had parked his car across the sidewalk. When the guy came out of his house, he asked us in his accented (and probably learned from the movies) English, "What is duh meaning of dis?" I was so astonished, all I could do was repeat the question back to him (with much better enunciation) "What is the meaning of this?" I was tempted to ask him if he meant his query in a metaphysical sense which would have rendered any answer I could have given completely unsatisfactory in a world as mundane as a PCOs. Instead I just gave him the facts. We laughed about this guy for days.

Well, training is almost over for our newbie. I hope she goes on to have a sterling career. If she can keep a straight face.

Signed,
Officer X
or
The Prince of Parking
The Sultan of Spots
The King of the Curb
The Rajah of Red Zones
(You get the idea)

10-7