Officer Alex explains why no one else gets upset when you are being a dumb-ass
Editor’s Note: Officer Alex has been busy chasing car thieves, so we are running a past favorite column this week.
Opening a car can be difficult. I mean, you have to extract your keys and push a button on a fob, or in the olden days you’d actually have to insert an actual key into an actual lock, and a couple of those dinosaurs are still on the road from what I can tell. I mean can you imagine? Unlocking a door?
And that’s before you get to the nightmare of actually having to place a key into the car’s ignition. Is this the Dark Ages or what? “They” may as well ask us to build another pyramid at Giza, or raise our own children!
I can’t save you from inconveniences such as the latter two, but I can give you a way out of the former two examples given: Bypass the whole process by leaving the car unlocked and placing that antiquated phallic symbol in the ignition 24/7. Two birds, one stone. Oh, there is a downside, sure, but what are the odds? For that risk, you don’t have to go to the trouble of “pushing a button” or “turning a key” ever again! And that’s important.
Should you make that choice though, when your ride is inevitably stolen? Brace yourself, because not only are you going to be sad…you’re going to be irrevocably irritated that no one else is going to give any more of a crap than you did by leaving your damn key in the ignition in the first place. Allow me to explain.
Policing can be a very complex issue, and with so many different variables affecting so many different crimes we have to use science to make us operate as efficiently as possible. In the case of the example above, we use an algorithm that serves as a sliding scale of sorts to determine our response. It’s actually quite complicated and my word processor won’t allow me to display the proper characters for the equation, so I’ll simplify it by saying that “the level to which one gives a %$#@ about a thing has a directly proportional effect on the response to its theft.” That is to say, if you did not give a %$#@, it would not be reasonable for you to expect others to give a %$#@ either now that you’ve gone from a time of internal peace to a time of internal nuclear jihad Def Con 1 as a direct result of being of being agonizingly lazy.
This is particularly irritating when your irresponsibility suddenly forces you to do a 180 on your prior stance, because no one else will be as eager to join you on this unexpected journey of self-discovery, no matter how much energy you are suddenly putting into it. These journeys are ones taken alone—unless of course you’re dragging along a group of hapless victims (aka “family” or “a friend”) with you who are equally victimized by your carelessness. And while they are literally onboard with you, emotional support would not be a reasonable expectation from them.
So when the initial officer responds and puts the tag into the national database, covers the basics, and then goes on to answer other calls instead of heading to City Hall to wake up the commissioner to establish a task force to map out key choke points across the Tri-State area and re-task NSA satellites for the car you didn’t insure and left unlocked with the key plugged in? I recommend you put on a helmet, because your emotional crash will be a profound one.
Sometimes…you just have to let the Universe unfold as it was intended to. And this isn’t limited to giving away the car your cheap-ass “didn’t see the need to waste insurance money on since it was just going to be in your driveway.” No.
If you get blackout drunk at the local Slap & Tickle and come to in an unfamiliar parking lot with your pants unbuttoned and your wallet missing? Hey, man. Don’t consider yourself a victim—consider yourself lucky. Buy a time-share or get in on the ground floor of a foolproof guaranteed investment deal and lose your ass? Same thing.
As a civilization, we can land a robot on a passing comet. But as individual people? We’re lucky to not accidentally kill ourselves with an electric razor on an hourly basis.
We all have to pay the Stupid Tax at one point or another, and being mad at others for not chipping in because of a situation you created will not help anything, I assure you.
But if you do get mad? I appreciate it. Your response is proportional to the sense of humor in others, as well.
When officer Alexander D. Teach is not patrolling our fair city on the heels of the criminal element, he spends his spare time volunteering for the Boehm Birth Defects Center.