“Hi, this is [ahem] from the History department. We’ve just received a package that appears to contain a human skull. Could you send someone over, please?”
– [ahem] from History department
See above.
Truly, your timing with over commercialized holidays is uncanny!
We sent over an officer half expecting to uncover a Halloween decoration with “Made in China” stamped merrily across it. Imagine our surprise then when he carted back a box containing two and half genuine human noggins! Look to be Native American remains, they’re trying to trace them now. Naturally the desecration of human bodies and disturbing of Indian remains is both illegal and (especially at this time of year) liable to open portals into the nether world, but sue me, I’m thrilled. I dashed back to the patrol room, slapped on a pair of plastic gloves, and got to handle them under the officer’s watchful eye. It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened in a couple of weeks! And if I drop dead in the near future, you can snuff it up to an ancient curse.
In less bizarre but equally exciting news, poodles, come back tomorrow for an exciting new giveaway!
Curious?
Note: the prize will not include federally protected remains, items, artwork, etc. Apologies in advance for any disappointment.
“It’s like saying ‘Macbeth’ in the theatre!” – Grey’s Anatomy
Surviving in the corporate world, even on the rather planktonian level of a University police office, requires certain precautions of the supernatural variety. Whether by occult design or unnatural happenstance, bad things often happen in threes. Whenever one needs a large print job, an obligatory sacrifice of small animals/Freshmen is usually necessary to get its resident poltergeist to permit the entire project to come out unscathed. When discussing hypothetical future events, it is absolutely necessary to pound, not simply knock, on wood to ensure that nothing will hex your efforts.
And you must never, under any circumstances, ever make the fatal mistake of saying that the office is “quiet.” It matters not if it’s dull as tombs, to draw attention to any dearth of activity is to invoke the wrath of the Office Gods who delight in punishing mortals. The moment you mention that you haven’t enough to do, that no one has come to the front desk in some weeks, or that the phone hasn’t even rung in approximately 400 years…le deluge.
Cars start colliding, thieves pour from the shadows and swipe everything in sight, power lines go down and tornadoes spin up.
Friday I made the classic error. Hennessy and I were comparing late afternoon notes on our days when I confessed that the office was dead.
C. you IDIOT!
Immediately bellows erupted from Lt. Figaro’s office and echoed down the hall as he and a patron got into it a bit over the phone. And mere moments after that a young lady appeared, asking one of the officers to do something to a report (I didn’t hear precisely what, but it seemed she wished to come off sounding better than she felt the report currently did). She was instantly and brusquely informed that no such change would be made and was bid a stern good day and exited snarling. Every phone in the office started ringing. Lt. Figaro finally hung up on his frothing foe and stormed out to raise havoc in the patrol room.
Seeing that she was next in line for a lashing, I quietly suggested to Hennessy that she and I extricate ourselves from the situation my tongue had foolishly caused. We escaped to do the laundry run.
“The cat likes overhearing children stories.” – Amelie (2001)
Let's listen in, shall we?
Working at University Police Department, one overhears things. And if one is like me, with the unnatural ability to tune into conversations at the oddest, most embarrassing, or just when it’s heading for the HR office reportable. one overhears too much.
Can you guess the context of what was overheard this week?
“I need to go put a shirt on.”
A) Lt. Colossus gets in from his shift at Chippendales
B) A load of pasta had spilled down Lt. Figaro’s best uniform
C) A student officer, forced to strip when he got soaked in a downpour, relates his frustration
“She was the least flexible woman I’ve ever done!”
A) Wise relates a tale from her pregnancy yoga class
B) Lt. Citrus accidentally lets slip an insight to his scandal ridden past
C) Officer Lampost fingerprints an octogenarian
“Wow, I’ve never seen you in clothes!”
A) Bebe reveals her scandalous affair, HR is called
B) Bebe reveals her propensity to visit Chippendales (see Number 1)
C) Bebe embarrasses an officer when we get a rare glimpse of him in street clothes
“Have you ever been jogging with fireflies. Magical!”
A) A student officer is on drugs
B) A student officer is severely concussed
C) Hell if we know…
“Yum…strawberry!”
A) A student officer is on drugs, again
B) A student officer ate a whole bag of Jolly Ranchers and is vibrating from a sugar high
C) …???
Code
The answers are all “C”
1-2 correct: you’ve a filthy mind
3-4 correct: you’ve a boring mind
5 correct: cheater!
“Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.” ~ Katharine Hepburn
Yesterday, under orders from the University, the entire department attended an anti-harassment seminar. It didn’t go as well as could have been desired.
The officers, muttering something about cooties, grudgingly trotted off and about an hour later office personnel followed. When the secretaries entered, a collective groan went up as the men were forced to put away their Vargas posters and NSFW magazines.
The presenter stood up, closing her ears when an unnamed person muttered something about “having to listen to this broad for an hour,” and put on a cheerful face.
“I’m here to talk to you all today about unacceptable behaviors at work. Luckily there are no [censored slur] here, so this should be easy.”
Things rapidly devolved from there.
“The protected categories of personal traits are sex, gender, religious affinity, color, genetic information, age, and -”
“What’s the difference between sex and gender?” yelled out someone. “I mean, besides who you’re allowed to hit on?”
Musical Theatre, as seen by some seminar attendees.
“One is your actual sex, male or female. The other refers to expectations or traits of your sex. For example, ridiculing a woman for trying to tackle something obviously beyond her scope, like chemistry. Or a man for studying something that we can use to determine his sexual orientation, like musical theatre.”
“I’m a musical theatre major,” injected one student from the back of the conference room.
“Oooh, look at him,” cooed some of his compatriots flapping their wrists at him and beginning to make obscene personal remarks.
“Then why don’t you put on a skirt and wash something,” yelled a sergeant, diminutive in size anxious to fit in the Boys Club.
You're a girl!
C., enraged at the slur on A) skirts and B) laundry duties, leaped to her feet, climbed up over the seats and delivered a long and inventoried tirade abusing the sergeant’s personal hygiene and evolutionary history. Hennessy, attempting to restrain her friend, tried to mitigate matters until a student officer told her to “shut up, quit working, and stay at home like she was supposed to.” Whereupon both Hennessy and C. launched themselves at the student and his companions and frightful blows were exchanged.
“Women can work,” Chief hurried to scream into the fray, trying to calm everyone down, “unless they become pregnant!”
“Excuse me?” bellowed Wise planting her hands on her growing stomach to brace for impact before she barreled him over. Rounding on the company she roared, “Who’s next, you bunch of communists?!”
Susie demanded, “Who’s the commie pig?” whipped off her heels and began stabbing anyone in her way with stilettos
While this was going on, both a male and female officer had taken refuge under the stage. “Good thing we’re staying out of it,” said the male officer to a female, nudging her arm conspiratorially.
“Molester!” she screamed and dragged her surprised, hapless victim out where he was quickly devoured by a herd of bloodthirsty traffic clerks.
From the podium, the presenter tried to beat off a student officer with a propensity to stalking with a chair, yelling “Fire!” to make someone pay attention to her plight.
“I thought,” shouted Chief from where he was wrestling with a young female worker who was trying to get him in a compromising position in order to sue the university, “you had to tell someone who – ow! – was annoying or offending you – let go of my leg! – to stop before you could take legal action.”
“Oh no!” responding the presenter, getting her assailant into a headlock, “A behavior doesn’t have to be acknowledged to be unwelcome.”
“Yeah!” shouted Lt. Colossus, emerging from the brawl bloody but unbowed. “Watch!”
He reached out to where Lauper was punching an officer and ridiculing him for impotence, slapped her on the bum and collapsed on the ground when she promptly kneed him in the groin. She was then set upon by a small horde of police officers who beat her senseless, calling her (alternatively) Hindu, Sheik, Protestant, and a variation of African spiritualism that the editors are not sure how to correctly spell.
Pictured: the seminar room, post seminar.
The brawl was not broken up until both dogs and firehoses were turned on the rampaging attendees. At which time it was ascertained that four were dead, seven concussed, one was bleeding out, three had lost the ability to walk, and two the ability to reproduce. Other casualties include a missing eye, several knocked out teeth and, to date, one marriage. After mopping up the entrails, the mob was deposited at the university’s Equal Opportunity office where the presenter, ashamed that she let the meeting get so out of hand, apologized but was fired anyway because in the future, “keeping track of these [censored slur] would clearly be a man’s job.”
After a strict talking to, the rest of us were sent home with copies of “Men are from Neptune, Women are from Saturn’s Sixth Moon, Titan.”
“Ah, Cindy Sondheim, you should have lived in an earlier age. Things were simpler, less complicated. Do you know how many women had nervous breakdowns in the fourteenth century? Two.”
– Love at First Bite
Thanks for all the lovely pick-me-up comments yesterday, darlings. It was really nice to know how many of you have felt the same way – and as every last one of you have turned out amazing and unbelievably fabulous, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to do the same with a bit more time, a few more naps, and much less stress.
Yesterday was beastly (if you couldn’t tell!). We’ve heard negatives on some of J.’s internship applications and are still waiting to hear back on others, which is almost more nerve wracking.
I had to hire a dozen students last minute and despite telling administration multiple times that we don’t have space for any more people, they were still shocked to discover that we didn’t have enough lockers or uniforms/gear for them. Unfortunately, the ones ending up looking foolish in this situation are your friendly neighborhood C. and Hennessy, who have to explain to several students why they have to cart a pile half as tall as me of gear home with them.
I barely averted a few violations that would have added up to potentially thousands of dollars in fines had I not caught them.
I’d only got four hours of sleep the night before.
So, these and other factors combined into the perfect storm. Literally! Just as I was getting ready to go do the laundry run, a massive lightening and rain storm whipped up. You may recall how often it rains when I do the laundry run, it’s lately become the office joke. So when I ambled past Susie’s office to tell her I was heading out I glanced our her window and froze. It was pitch black outside and rain was lashing the pane.
I felt a helpless, hysterical giggle start bubbling up inside of me and a clapped a hand over my mouth to keep it in. But to no avail! Both Susie and Wise turned, saw the rain, and started chuckling. Then Chief poked his head around the corner and grumbled, “Have you done the laundry yet?”
That did it. I collapsed on Susie’s desk laughing (and nearly crying). She and Wise joined in, Chief stared at us a minute before retreating to the safety of his office. When I got home, I put on flannel pants, an oversized sweatshirt, pinned my hair up, and crawled into bed with a book.
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
– Isaac Asimov
Definately human.
The interesting thing about working at a university is how much information, equipment, and expertise is available to you. So when a plastic bag filled with large bones is found buried on the grounds, it’s the work of a moment to ask someone from Anthropology to come over and verify that they aren’t human. Just in case. Or, less professionally, when one is hungry, one can just scamper over to any of the cafes, food halls, or centers that provide sustenance for cheap prices.
Alternatively, using campus resources can often put one in an awkward situation.
In the library there is a very nice media lab where you can covert anything in any format to any other format you please. Now I’m pretty technologically illiterate, but even I can appreciate that sort of thing. And for the first time I got to use it yesterday when Lt. Citrus gave me a sack full of VHS tapes and told me to convert them to DVDs. How neat, thought I, and off I trotted.
I got a crash course in using the towering masses of machinery and, after snatching a book to keep me company (another benefit of a university setting), I got to work. There was a lot of loading/unloading tapes, keeping an eye on the screens, finalizing data, etc., but mostly it involved waiting for the tapes to run fully (which could last from a few minutes to a couple hours). And I even watched a couple: guy holding an audience hostage because God told him he was supposed to be supreme dictator or Earth, rioting at football games, your average wierdos…you know, the usual.
However there was some pretty dark stuff too and when converting those I taped paper over the screens (because I am of the somewhat old fashion opinion that an individual’s personal tragedy is nobody else’s damn business). During these tapes, I kicked back with my book until I was rudely disturbed but a gentleman marching up to me.
You've been recording investigation documents, vital to court proceedure, medical records, and department case archives, for entirely TOO LONG. You will now be punished!
“You’ve been here for a long time,” he accused.
“Yes, and I apologize, but I am working on something important on behalf of the University. I’m nearly done. Do you need the machines?”
“No,” he said snappishly . “I just think you’re being inconsiderate taking up so much time.”
Not really prepared to handle this sort of time management vigilante-ism (side note – not one person had previously needed to use the machines or asked me when I would be done), I only blinked.
“You’re probably not even doing anything remotely important,” he continued, crossing his arms and turning up his nose. “What are you working on?”
I felt an eyebrow climb at his tone but answered in a chipper voice, “Well I’m transferring a video taken from a homicide scene investigation. Then I’ll have to transfer the autopsy tapes as well, care to watch?”
His eyes bugged for a moment and then he slunk off.
Like I said, the equipment and resources amassed here are fantastic, but the ability to see some people in all there snippy, self-important silliness might be my favorite part of my job after all.
I really am surprised and dismayed whenever it is reiterated to me that the general public thinks our department is staffed with morons. I don’t know where this idea comes from – that anyone who works at/for a police department has the IQ of a deck chair – but really, can we let it go?
So when you call up the parking office, asking us to remove a car from our records because you won’t be driving it anymore, we take pause. Because, you see, we have access to your state records and your class schedule. We can see that you live far enough away from campus that walking could be uncomfortable, we can also see that you are sill enrolled in classes. We also know that, with your student parking privileges removed, the only place your car could park on campus would be a visitor lot. And we know that you know that parking in visitor lots while still a student is forbidden. And finally, we are able to guess that a man still enrolled in classes asking us to remove his parking privileges, while living too far away to walk to campus daily, might be trying to find a loophole for parking in visitor lots.
Most vitally, we know that checking visitor lots regularly for people who have already tried this trick hundreds of times, turns up at least half a dozen like minded people a day. Here’s your ticket. Also, I have a Twitter friend for you.
We’re not idiots. And you’re not as clever as you think you are. We really have seen it all before, and have prepared accordingly.
Allow me to disabuse you of a seemingly common notion: the internet is not anonymous. No really, it’s not. Yes, there are steps you can take to protect your identity and privacy, but anyone who really wants to figure out who is posting those trollish comments at the bottom of a youtube video probably can.
From a police perspective, this anonymity myth is particularly funny. We’ve had instances with theft that we’ve traced from Craiglist, and abuse of animal carcasses (not as kinky as it sounds) that we’ve tracked from Facebook. The bottom line is, if you do something wrong and then publish photos, accounts, or step-by-step instructions somewhere online, it is really easy to find you and punish you.
So, when a kid shared on Twitter that he was jumping curbs in his car to park in visitor and handicapped parking, it was the work of a mere moment to look up his name on the campus directory, see what car he drove, and slap a ticket on it. And when he came in huffing and puffing about why he’d got a ticket because “he hadn’t done anything wrong,” it was immensely satisfying to tilt a computer screen at him to display his own confession, broadcast for all creation to see, and watch him turn 12 shades of red.
Truth is, dear World At Large, if you really are so silly as to tell everyone what you’ve done and where you are, do expect someone to show up and hold you accountable. Because someone probably will. And if you are really so narcissistic that you have to share every detail of your life, even your petty criminality with us, you have much larger issues to deal with.
“Sweet is revenge – especially to women.”
– Lord Byron
Good morning, minions. Where can I get the best real-looking plastic snakes money can buy?
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought work ended at 5.
Last week, after doing the laundry run, I returned the key to Lt. Colossus as per usual. Then J. and I headed up to the City for the evening. I’d left my phone at home because it needed to charge, and when we came back I had about half a dozen messages on it that proceeded thus:
“C. this is —- from work, Lt. Colossus asked me to call you and find out where you left the key to the van. Could you call me back? Thanks.”
“C. this is —- again, we really need that key.”
“This is Officer —-, I’m not happy. You know that you’re supposed to turn that key into Colossus when you’re done, it’s not your car. We need to use it.”
“C., Colossus. Where the hell is that key? You know better than to keep it, damn it! We need it!”
“C.! Where is it?!”
“C. Hi…sorry…this is Colossus…I found the key…see you tomorrow.”
The blasted man, after having told all the officers on duty who needed the van that I had absconded with their blessed key, had accidentally taken it home with him in his pants pocket. Jupiter Ammon, what is it with men and pants in this office?!
But to add insult to injury, this morning he found Lt. Citrus pressing a uniform in the supply room and cracked, “Shouldn’t you have to wear a skirt to do that?”
Wise heard him and let him have it with both barrels.
“But you girls weren’t supposed to hear that,” he protested.
“It’s sexist whether we hear it or not,” I retorted.
“You just have not sense of humor,” he tried to tease.
See, my my bite far, far worse than my bark.
Foolish, foolish man. I’ve officially lost patience with your mild but all-pervading sexism and your tendency to blame things on me. And unlike most women you seem to know, I am not of the ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away persuasion. Also I know three very important things about you. 1 – that you scream like a girl, 2 – that you are terrified of snakes, 3 – your locker combination.
There are many ways to cure sexism and undesirable behavior. I choose psychological warfare.
Small Dog Syndrome 