that tall redhead: pablo & the gun

the title of this blog has nothing to do with the actual post...stephen (from the post below) mentioned that he got on my blog and thought he read "pablo & the gun" when it was actually "powder & the prez".

i thought it was so funny, so i decided to title this blog that very thing.

my sister, jenn, came up with this idea months ago.

you should ride around with an on-duty cop for one of your fun adventures this year.

“you can actually do that?”

“yes, michael (my brother in law) has done it before. you should ride around with dave.”

dave is a good family friend of ours. not only is he a great police officer, he’s one of the funniest human beings alive. literally can make anyone laugh until their stomach hurts.

“okay, sign me up.”

a few weeks before a scheduled trip to texas, michael made the call and asked dave if i could ride around with him while i was in town.

he agreed and sent me the “release of liability and assumption of risk-police rider” form. after reading the 1st page, it dawned on me that maybe my sister wanted to be an only child…

not only did i have to sign (and risk) away my life, i had to follow a dress code…

truthfully, i’m still upset with myself…if i would have thought this out more, i would have found a cute black and white striped dress to wear…how appropriate would that have been for the occasion?

before heading to texas, i thought it would be best to get into shape before my big night of fighting crime, so caroline and I went to the gym…i must say, i've got a pretty good right hook.

dave called a few days before our scheduled shift with the details.
“so I’ve got the late shift, 9 p.m.-7 a.m. just plan on riding around with me for all 10 hours.”

“10 hours! i was thinking 2 or 3 hours…would that work?”

he laughed and was completely fine with it.

the big day of fighting crime finally arrived.

i thought to myself we’re not going to see much..maybe get in on a traffic stop...it’s a sunday night. what bad guys do stuff on a sunday night?

i showed up at the station at 9:30. two seconds after putting my seat belt on the radio went off with a lady telling us there was a drug bust nearby. i was beginning to feel that “what in the world did you just get yourself into” feeling in my gut. but there was no time to really react to that, because within seconds we were at the scene. cops were swarming the car that they believed to have the drugs in it. we ended up just driving by the scene to make sure everything was ok.

it hadn’t been five minutes, when we got another call that robbers had broken in a convenience store and walked out with the cash register. (i wonder who their trainer was that prepared them for carrying heavy cash registers for a distance?)

dave peeled out of the parking lot we were in and began to drive…very fast.

and when i mean very fast, i mean 98 mph in a 40 mph.

at this point, i wasn’t afraid of being shot, i was more afraid of our car wrapping itself around a tree…with me in it.

dead silence. this is what normally happens to me when i get scared...i can’t even mutter a word.

as we took a sharp turn (yes, still going really fast) our tires made that loud squeaking sound (just like you see in the movies!).

i braced myself…and….we….made….it.

nice.

i could breathe again.

i guess dave noticed that i was completely silent and was gripping the door(for dear life) and mentioned that in training to become a police officer they have to go to driving school to drive like this. i really don’t remember what i said to that.

we drove around the area where the suspected thieves were at. ..they were apparently on foot. several other cops were on the scene and as we passed them dave realized the camera on his car wasn’t working. bad news for a police officer because they tape and record everything.

with the other officers on the scene, we left and headed back to the station to switch cars.

for the next hour or so we drove around looking for bad guys. nothing. who knows, maybe a couple of people actually listened in church that morning.

unfortunately, in the time I was in the car, we never picked up any bad guys….disappointing, I know.

i kept wondering what i would have said to someone if we did pick them up….do you think it would have been wrong to have given them a christian track? or ask them how they got to this point in their life?

by midnight, i called it quits and headed home. alive.

there is no one else that I would rather have done this with besides dave. in my opinion, he's one of the best police officers out there. dave, thank you so much for letting me join you in fighting crime.

as i told dave, this gave me a whole new gratefulness for the men (and women) that are out there protecting us.

and as a bonus for this month...here's another first for me. i was on the news for good day alabama. i was a makeup model for one of our programs at work...very fun!