Well...I’m bored at the moment and the real-time strategy version of the pinnacle of nerd entertainment-Warhammer 40,000-is getting old. I’ve beaten it three times, so I thought I’d update. I would go back to the leather-clad lesbians of Clive Barker’s ‘Jericho’ but that’s not as awesome as it sounds when one factors in the skinless zombies and thoroughly gratuitous and unnecessary squishy noises. It’s a very moist game... So here I am.

It’s been an interesting week. While we haven’t had as many stabbings as Mike’s agency (read: none), we’ve had our share of blood. In our the neck of the woods, the last couple of months have seen roughly a dozen motorcycle riders either die or become severely injured. We’ve had some good fatal car crashes (‘good’ as in ‘interesting’...) too, but the theme for the last couple of months has been motorcycles. The sad part is that we’ve had some decent riders die in addition to the monumentally stupid bullet-bike riders as well. Ordinarily, when the rider of a bullet-bike/crotch-rocket dies, I use the term ‘good’ in it’s more traditional, celebratory sense. I try not to generalize (partially because it’s not fair but mostly in this case because I don’t HAVE to...), but the riders of bullet bikes tend to belong in one of two categories. 1) Greased-up, toned frat guys who need something to do in between keg stands and giving herpes to the local blondes. Or 2) pot-heads or crackheads who need some excitement and can’t afford a luxury car. Almost without exception, these riders tend to be young men under the age of 30. Those who care to keep count also know this demographic as the same one responsible for most car crashes and nearly all the violent crime. They also tend to have egos to rival the size of the sores on their balls. More often than not, one can find at least one barbed-wire or henna tattoo somewhere on their bodies. A pierced lip or gauged ear would not be uncommon. Because, of course, one cannot possibly be a bad-ass unless one advertises that fact to the world through mutilation of their own bodies... At this point, regular readers should be coming to the conclusion that this is not a group of people I hold in high esteem. Indeed, it wouldn’t be far from the mark to say that I would consider almost ANYONE who regularly rides a bullet-bike as the pinnacle of douchbaggery. These are people who need a healthy dose of reality. Sometimes it is I or one of my colleagues who administers that dose of reality. Sweet. I love moments like that. Sometimes...it’s Mother Nature and her ‘zero tolerance’ laws of physics that deliver the-sometimes permanent-dose of reality. For instance, every once in a while we will use the prodigious resources at our disposal to track down the owner of a bullet bike who ran from us and drag him kicking and screaming out of his own bed at 1 in the morning. Those moments are nearly orgasmic. Less orgasmic but NO less pleasing are the times one of these scrotum-stains eats a wall at over 100 mph, efficiently transforming themselves into a substance best described as ‘meat pudding’. If the afore-mentioned scrotum-stain t-bones a minivan full of kids, it’s less satisfying, obviously, but still I feel that their debt is paid when the medical examiner is scooping bits of their skull out of a Honda Odyssey. I’m a big fan of the Darwin Awards and anyone who dies this way is contributing to the health of our species, as far as I’m concerned.

To any possible riders of bullet-bikes who read this: at LEAST wear your gear. Invariably, I add about 30 IQ points to my estimation of anyone I see who is wearing a leather jacket and full helmet. The blonde guys in tank-top, shorts and flip-flops...I secretly will pot-holes and deer to enter your path. You are worthless and should die with half your skin several hundred yards behind you. And yes...if you’re wearing all the gear and eat a wall at 100+ you will still die instantly. The only thing the helmet and jacket will do, really, is keep bystanders from getting splattered. They’ll keep you in a nice, juicy and pre-tenderized ‘package’. As Jerry Seinfeld says of wearing helmets while skydiving: ‘At that point the helmet is really wearing YOU for protection.’ But still...it seems like you take it more seriously and value your life a little more than those other fucks if you wear the gear.

I investigated a motorcycle crash a couple days ago where it looks like a major mechanical malfunction caused the rider to dump the bike. This was a Honda Shadow road cruiser, and the guy was a 58 year old man. He was wearing a 3/4 helmet (everything except a face shield and chin-guard) and that probably saved his life. As it was, he still ended up with a broken arm and leg and really good road rash. And that was after a pregnant lady in a Hyundai Sonata drove in front of a Chevy pickup to keep the pickup from running over him. He was a lucky, lucky guy. It seems we’ve been getting a serious motorcycle crash at least once a week. It’s getting ridiculous. The above-mentioned bullet-bike douche-nozzles had a couple of their ilk racing down a residential road and then they crashed into a family party. No one died, but several went to the hospital. Thankfully, the two riders also went to the hospital, which makes tracking them down and using the criminal justice system to absolutely rape them much, much easier. The poor lady who stopped to help and ended up using her Hyundai as a physical shield was freaking out. Damn hormones. I felt bad for her. She probably saved that guy’s life, but ruined her own night in the process. That fiasco got my ass on the news because my sergeant is out of town and all the OTHER sergeants were off by that point. I’m pissed off at the fact that appearing on camera is starting to feel more comfortable. You see, that means it happens WAY too often.

After all that, I had the FUN one. I was avoiding finishing up the report from the motorcycle crash and just running speed. It was about 0430 on a deserted highway. One vehicle was in sight. It was going 91 mph. Cool. I stopped the car and immediately got a little suspicious. It was a brand-new Honda Civic with a temporary tag. (Too new to have license plates yet.) That’s not a big deal. The occupants of the car and the time of night, though, made me perk up a little. The driver was a white dude. In a t-shirt, shorts and slippers. The front passenger looked like a young woman in similar clothes. Casual. The rear passenger was a fairly attractive female in a little black dress. Evening wear. The guy was a little nervous and that sixth sense that we slowly develop over time was starting to perk up. My initial thought was: "Whore and her customers," The girl in the back just seemed out of place. Ordinarily, though, straight-up hookers aren’t that hot. Escorts are, and their sluttiness is usually far more subtle and ably negotiated than the walking bio-weapon that is your average street-worker. But...you usually don’t have a normal girl in casual clothes sitting with the guy who hired the escort. So I wasn’t sure what was up yet. The short version? Dealer and customers. But we’ll get to that.

I asked the driver why he was speeding and he told me he was taking the car back to the owner. He was VERY insistent about the fact that the car wasn’t his. I asked for his license. He smiled and said he didn’t have one and that the only reason he was driving was because he was stranded. He gave me an ID card. He was clean except for the suspended license which expired four years ago. No warrants though. I gave him his ticket and asked the girls if either had a license.

The girl initially thought to be a whore told me she did. I asked for it. She explained she didn’t have it with her. (Spidey sense tingling a little more. Let’s say about a 4 out of 10 on the bullshit meter.) I asked for name and date of birth. She gave it to me with no problem. I went back and ran it. Valid license. Photo looked similar. (Spidey sense down to 3 out of 10). I went back to the car with a printout of the license. The picture didn’t really match up perfectly. (4/10) I asked her for her middle name. She gave it. I asked for the address listed on the license. She couldn’t. (6/10) I asked for her social security number. She couldn’t remember it (7/10) and then hastily told me that she was in the process of changing it (9/10) because someone had been using her name. I asked her to get out and watched her reactions. I got a closer look at her and the picture was looking less and less like her. The physical description on the license showed 5' 4". She wasn’t that tall. I wasn’t quite to 10/10 yet. Let’s say about 9.8/10. "Have a seat," I told her. She traded places with the driver which means she had control of the vehicle.

I went back to the car and ran local warrants for the last name. There were a couple warrants listed with people of the same last name whose DOB’s would be similar to how old I thought this girl was. I ran those. I got a couple of driver’s license numbers and ran those. Bingo! 10/10. Found a photo that was the spot-on match. I yanked her out of the car and hooked her. "Is that your sister?" I asked of the name and DOB she originally gave. She told me it was. "You guys look a lot alike." I said. She nodded and told me she knew. She had a couple of minor warrants for DUI and possession of drug paraphernalia (hmmm...).

I went back to the car AGAIN and asked the other female passenger if she had a license. She shook her head and told me hers was suspended, too. I got her info just to verify that and saw that it was suspended for drugs. Hmmm... I asked her what drugs she was caught with. She paused and then said, "Cocaine," Hmmm... Because I had no one there with a valid license to drive the car and no registered owner on scene anyway, I impounded it for possible theft. That gave me the right to search it. Just to cover my bases, I asked for consent to search anyway. "Is there anything in this car I should be worried about? Anything I wouldn’t like if I find it?" I asked. They both said no. The other guy AGAIN told me it wasn’t his car and he didn’t know what was in it. Hmmm... I asked if it would be ok if I took a look. The guy smiled and said it wasn’t his car again. Even so, I explained, would it be ok if I looked around. "I would prefer you didn’t," Hmmm... "Well, then I’ll just impound it anyway." I said. I had them both step out. I sat them down and called for a back. When the other officer got there, I searched the car. I immediately found a metal tube with a metal screen in one end (i.e.–‘crack pipe’). In the center console I found a sandwich baggie filled with needles and a plastic spoon. I assumed the plastic spoon was NOT used to scoop up insulin. Well, now I had exigent circumstances and probable cause, which means now I owned both those guys. I found a couple more in the driver’s door and took note of all that. I then asked the other girl if there was anything in her purse I wouldn’t like. She sighed and said there was a pipe. I found another, broken crack pipe in her purse, but no drugs yet. Dammit. I asked the guy if there was anything in his bag that he’d taken from the car I wouldn’t like. He shook his head. Aside from the nasty porno magazine, he was right. I then stood him up.

"Is there anything on your person I’m not going to like if I find it?" He smiled then and nodded. "Yeah," He said. "What? Not more needles right? Cuz I promise, if I get stuck by a needle searching you it’s going to be a very bad day for you." I explained very carefully, fully intent on his face meeting the concrete at a high rate of speed if I got stuck with a filthy needle. He shook his head, "No. I’ve got cocaine in my left pocket." Well, "I’ve got cocaine..." turned out to be something of an understatement. I expect user amounts of coke and crack to be tiny. Usually, a user amount of coke will fit in a little balloon or bag about the size of the fingernail on your index finger. A user amount of crack is significantly smaller since it’s more potent. He had five separate bindles which included both crack (remember the pipes?) and cocaine. When I got it all weighed after booking everyone, he had 11 grams of crack and 3.3 grams of coke. For those who aren’t familiar, that’s a shitload of both. He was dealing. He only had $300 in his pocket, which kinda surprised me. But then again, Slutzilla in the back of my patrol car who initially lied to me WAS dressed to the rafters with her tits on a tray. Maybe he was getting paid in OTHER ways. (Wink, wink, nudge, nudge...) After all, my initial reaction WAS that she was either a whore or an escort.

They both got booked, but the deputies found a little surprise in Slutzilla’s purse. She had a tear in the lining of her purse and I thought I’d seen everything. I guess I hadn’t. She had a little metal container with some white residue and some broken glass shards from yet another crack pipe. Since this was at the jail and I had asked if there was anything else I needed to know about, it’s considered felony smuggling. Poor Slutzilla... Since the glass shards were tiny and within the torn part of her purse I couldn’t see, I didn’t feel TOO bad about missing it on the street.

Ah, I tell ya...this job rules sometimes. Pulling all that crack out of that guy’s pocket was like Christmas morning as a kid... Only instead of hours of imagination and play-time, I get to send some guy to prison. It’s wonderfully fulfilling...

I’m out! Here’s your horoscope:

Your water will break while watching a performance of The Marriage Of Figaro, causing you great surprise, as you are not pregnant, female, or interested in opera.  (www.theonion.com)