Something I saw earlier reminded me of this story. I don’t remember what now, but I remember this story.

I came on duty early one morning. A friend of mine called me on the radio, asked me to meet her in a parking lot. Have you ever seen two police cars parked driver’s side to driver’s side at a gas station, next to a donut shop? They’re telling each other stories. This was hers:

“So check this out Herring. They send me out to the club earlier to give a drunk a ride home. I pull into the parking lot and see some dude sitting next to a light pole, his chin resting on his chest.

“‘Hey!’ I yell. ‘Do you need a ride?’ He looks up and tells me he doesn’t. That he’s good. So I drive up to the door. Ask the bouncer who needs a ride home. ‘That guy out there,’ he says, points to the fucker I just asked.

“So I pull back around. ‘Hey! You! You need a ride! Get in the back!’ He stands up and stumbles over to the car, gets in.

“‘Where do you live?’ I ask. He doesn’t know. Says something about Rose Terrace. Great, I think. I’ve got this drunk in my car and I’m going to drive around with him all night because he doesn’t know where he lives. But I drive out towards Rose Terrace. The fucker starts puking in the back of my car.”

“Oh no,” I say.

“Oh yeah. The car stinks. I drive around Rose Terrace for a little while. ‘Hey, where do you live?’ I ask. ‘Does any of this look familiar?’

“He puts his head up against the window. ‘Yeah, yeah, I think so. Go down the road a little?’

“So I drive this fucker around for about ten minutes. Finally he recognizes his house. But when I get out to open the door, he passes out. I can’t wake him up. This fucking guy. So I walk up to the door to wake his wife up, to make her carry his sorry ass up to bed, to clean out my back seat. And as I walk up, I see a piece of paper taped to the door. I get closer and see angry black letters scrawled across it. ‘SLEEP IN THE CAR ASSHOLE!'”