Background: After drinks at the Grizzly Peak, and food at the Fleetwood diner (awesome!), Oliver and I are walking back to the car freezing and shivering. Behold! What is this? A giant ice carving abandoned on the sidewalk? Let's play with it! Watch me ram this into the light post! Oh man it just broke in two!
It was a ton of fun smashing this ice carving to pieces. It was cool to see the ice pieces. The carving was big enough that the two of us would have trouble picking it up. Also, the ice was extremely clear, unlike ice cubes from your refrigerator. I think I was throwing one piece down at the other piece when we notice that an SUV cruiser pulls up along side.
Cop: "What are you fellas doing?"
Us: "Uh...playing...with this ice carving..."
Cop: "Don't you have anything better to do 1am at night?"
Us: "No." (Ok we didn't actually say this. We were smart enough to be respectful.)
Basically, we got interrogated by the police officer. He made us stand by the wall while he checked our ID's and asked us questions. He kept talking down to us, in a pretty patronizing way. I was pretty peeved, but luckily I didn't say anything. I think having Oliver around kept my mouth shut, because he was being acquiescent.
Afterwards, I felt like I had just been unjustifiably pushed around and I talked to Oliver about it. Turns out Oliver's a bit more experienced than I at this. Basically, don't screw with cops. They know the law better than you, and they're human too. They're susceptible to the same fighting emotions that everyone has. ie. if I had tried to start an argument with him, the cop would have written me up for being uncooperative or something similarly painful. Lesson learned.
I have to say, this is the first time in awhile that I've been annoyed at the police. There's been times in the past, where a cop is just sitting there, trying purposely to catch speeders. It's a really irritating habit they have, but somewhat justified. They're preventing speeding, albeit with a heavy hand. This time however, the most I could see was that we got ice on the street. It wasn't even in the lanes though, and we still had to go through all that trouble. After questioning us, the police officer basically told us to get out of his sight. I felt thoroughly disgusted by what happened. It felt like this guy was using his position to try to goad us and patronize us. For playing with ice.
Police uphold the law. They serve and protect. For half an hour last night, I saw the humanity behind this ideal.
