Math . . .

The quote of the week when it comes to math problems.

"How did you get that answer?"
"Push equal."

Nice.

Traffic . . . again.

So as much as I love our little traffic enforcement officers, my other half included, it gets old in the academy. Don't get me wrong, but . . .

"You know what traffic reconstructionists are? The chess team of the police department. Nerds."

"Wait . . . what are we taking the square root of again? The drag factor is what? How do you know that? What the hell? If I wanted to do this shit I would have taught math."

You all should know I'm only making fun of you because I'm not good at it . . .

That's not me . . . or my brother

So for all of you who remember this post, here is a fantastic follow up piece. I must warn you, the stupidity will probably make your brain hurt.
This guy comes in for a THIRD time. He lies about his name AGAIN. At this point I'm tired, cranky and just want to eat my damn Twix bar in peace. But, no. Special kid here thinks that for some reason, since I was the officer to call his bluff last time, that he will attempt to lie to me again. Communication skills went directly out the window. There was no get out of jail free card, just "Pass Go and Do Not Collect $200."
I print out his real name, his alias, and all the booking photos I have of him. I slam all of this down on the counter with the polite response of, "Are you f*ing serious?"
"That's not me."
"Oh, really? Let me guess. That's your twin brother."
"Uh . . . no. I've never seen those two guys before."
"Really? Because they're the same damn person. YOU!!!"
"No, that' s someone completely different."
"Seriously?"

I hate stupid people.

Special kid . . .

We've all worked with or sat through continuing education with this guy. He's annoying, a know it all, has no shame and everything he says needs fact checked. He is a special kid. We are blessed with two of these in my academy class. The guy that sits next to me is considering taking barbiturates to put up with them the next Saturday class. I had to confiscate all the sharp objects from our group yesterday before war broke out or people started stabbing themselves in the eye.
The coup de grace yesterday? Sgt. Traffic was talking about clocking bikes and rollerbladers with RADAR and LASER as a joke.
Special kid #1 goes, "Yeah, I've gotten up to 45mph."
Sarge goes, "On what? A luge?!?"
"No, on Rollerblades."
"Hmm. Unfortunately Darwin did not take appropriate action."

Sarge's parting quote of the day: "Listen. You want to be a good cop? Learn to anticipate other people's stupidity."

Things I have learned this week . . .

How to direct traffic. For four hours.

I look dead when I fall asleep sitting up. Or at least that's what I'm told.

No matter how hard I try, I look like a prisoner in all my departmental photos.

Men's uniform pants fit me better.

The probationary firefighter assigned to my Lt. and I is kind of different. I don't think there's a whole lot we can do to change that unfortunately.

If caffeine and chocolate does not fix it, sleep will.

The best thing ever is going to breakfast after work with your buddies to decompress.

You never know what kind of a difference you can make . . .

Greetings! . . . You are now screwed.

Part 2 of Sgt. Traffic's amazing class.

"You rednecks don't have K-9s out there. You probably have a rabid raccoon in your trunk."

"Look. When you get a letter from the courts or the government it should say this: Greetings! . . . You are now screwed."

"Here's a list of some of the more obscure laws for you, break these out when you're so pissed your eye is twitching."

"I had someone ask me to post-date a ticket until after their court appearance for DUI. Seriously."

"NO. They do NOT get a warning for that. If I have to complete THAT much paperwork, somebody is getting a ticket. Press hard, three copies."

"What the hell are you talking about? That's not even in my statute book! If you write somebody for that I will wear you out!!"

"THAT is grounds for a TASER. NOT handholding. I should use it on YOU."

Rollovers, telephone poles and you . . .

An hour before shift change we get toned out mutal aid to assist a neighboring FD with a semi truck rollover because their squads are tied up. Upon arrival we discover one downed telephone/electric pole and another broken off half way up. The semi is lying on its side and the cab is in pieces. No one from the neighboring FD is paying attention to the fact that the cracked pole could break and drop live wires on everyone at any time. We yell at them to get the hell out of the way before we all die, and move the patient to a safe location. We then discover half of the other department's personnel has walked through the diesel leaking out of the truck. What the hell?
It was like everyone on scene took a vacation day and forgot any training/scene safety they had ever learned.
The other genius moment came when our patient started coughing up frothy blood. EMT of the Year candidate (note the obvious sarcasm) from the other FD tells me this . . . "He's fine he just bit his tongue." WTF?! No jackass. He has a hemopneumothorax. Which was confirmed by our assessment, and the ER. He went to the trauma center against EMT of the Year's best protests of, "You guys are so paranoid, he's just a little banged up." Yeah. About that. That's why we had to intubate and assist ventilations en route. Because he's fine. God, I hope this kid never treats me.