That’s right, it’s that time again. Okay, stop checking your watch and your day-planner with that confused look on your face. This isn’t a yearly tele-thon or a holiday or a anniversary as such.
About once per online journal/blog/diary/website-type-thing I’ve been through, I post about how I don’t have the best of feelings towards the local law enforcement agencies. Now, if I knew personally of someone who had been really helped by a police officer — you know, rescued, saved, or otherwise had property recovered or justice served — it might not be so much of a big deal.
People’s faux patriotism is starting to wear off now, five years after the tragedy of September 11th, 2001. I am grateful for the quick response of the fire and police departments in the events that occurred there that day and the terrible days of black smoke and death that followed. Fast forward five years, and change locations to a town a few states further south.
The police arrive twenty to thirty minutes late to any burglary or other break-in, pull my coworkers over simply for being blonde and young and have out-of-state tags, chase down speeders (unless it’s inconvenient), and bring extra attention to accidents with minimal carnage on I-95 so that the rubber-neckers slow down just that much more to see what’s going on.
OH. And I forgot to mention that they blocked off almost every route home that I had for the last few nights I’ve been leaving Fredericksburg after midnight? I’ll go down the main road, and suddenly there’s a police car with flares out on the road blocking off the intersection at probably one of the most inconvenient points you can do so. So then I can either turn around and go all the way back to the other side of town and get on I-95 there, or I can turn and go into Central Park and get on I-95 at the nearer exit. I hate getting on I-95 for just one exit down, but there wasn’t any other choice. So I turn into Central Park, and sure enough, there was another police car there with a cop directing people to turn instead of using the intersection.
I pulled up near to where the cop could hear me and I rolled down my window. “Go ahead and turn,” she said, kind of frustrated.
I said “How am I supposed to get to [insert my neighborhood here]?” She told me to get on 95. Which was apparently blocked by the police officer in question. “Can I do that with your boys blocking the way there?”
“Just go on and turn,” she said. I knew she wasn’t going to tell me anything more about what’s going on. This is probably the third night in a row I’ve tried to go home and the poh-poh have been in the way. Let’s just say they aren’t on my Favorite People List™.