#NerdsUnite: The secret life of a veterinary technician (Police shenanigans)
<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Lindsay. She and I met ... well, somewhere in the social space. I think we might have started talking through this site directly, then through facebook - maybe ... I'm not sure. But she's awesome. I talk to her on twitter almost every day, and she's really rad and TOTALLY a big huge animal lover. Like crazy huge!! In these series of posts she will be talking about her life and random adventures with sometimes more than two legged creatures. I guess there's only one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LINDSAY!!</editorsnote>
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @TheCraftafarian
Wednesday night I was on my way to the place I was pet sitting for with my dogs. I noticed a car following closely and sure enough I was getting pulled over by the police. It was pretty late at night, probably almost 1 am, I was a little high, and really exhausted. I had no idea why I was getting pulled over. Since it was so late I decided to pull over on the road we were already on under a street lamp (you never know!) so we had some light.
The officer gets on the PA speaker thing and instructs me to pull up to the next cross street and turn down it. Of course it's dark but I realize there are three squad cars so there is plenty of light with all their flashing ones. I stop the car, put my hands on the wheel, and wait. I'm expecting an officer to come up to the window but that doesn't happen.
Then the voice on the speaker says, "Roll up your windows, turn off the car, come out with your drivers license and your hands visible."
Now I'm freaking the fuck out. The only thing saving me from getting hysterical is knowing I hadn't done anything wrong. In my head I was thinking am I getting arrested for something? Did someone switch my tags? What. The. Fuck.
I do exactly as instructed and carefully walk over to the 3 visible officers and 3 police vehicles. I walk carefully so they can see I'm not drunk and won't be doing anything stupid. Once I'm over to the officer that pulled me over the third car departs leaving me with two squad cars and three officers that I was aware of.
Note: It is hard as fuck to see anything when there is one car with flashing lights let alone two or three!! I kept squinting and shading my eyes with my hands.
They ask me to stand over off to the side kind of in between them and my car. I asked if I could sit down and I could see my dogs watching me, probably wondering what they hell was going on. They didn't bark or growl once. The second vehicle was an SUV which was driven by their corporal--the boss I was informed.
Apparently they pulled me over for having a headlight out--which I was unaware of. They told me they would run my license and as long as that was fine then I would be ok to go with just a citation.
As they were running my license the younger officer asked the corporal how he was doing and he replied, "I'm doing fine as long as those dogs don't come out of that car." He was watching my dogs very intently.
That's when it all made sense and I felt a tiny bit more comfortable. They were doing all this "criminal" shit to protect themselves and protect my dogs from being in a bad situation. I told the corporal they are friendly but I totally understand.
The corporal left after my license checked out clean. They handed me back my license and I put it in my pocket--then they asked me to keep my hands out of my pockets. I apologized but they explained that one was in training and was being graded so he had to go exactly by the book. I told them while alarming, I appreciated the way they completely avoided confrontation with the dogs, even though they are sweet, you never know what could happen. I also told them about a few stories where pets were shot without taking preventative measures first (ie. have owner remove dog, taser, pepper spray). The officer grading the other said he's only had to shoot one once and it made him very upset but the dog was latched onto his arm and wouldn't let go. I told him about when I was bitten in the face by a big husky and that I understand accidents happen (and it sucks!).
All said and done, they decided to not give me a $140 citation for my headlight but we decided "I failed to show my insurance card" which is a $10 fee when I bring it in to thr clerk of the court. If he wasnt training/grading they wouldn't have given me anything, damn!
Oh well, I learned from that experience and it's nice to know there really are officers who take precautions with dogs. I also learned how to replace a headlight bulb...it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. But my friend and I did it!