Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha' goin' to do?

You know how your mother told you to stay away from bad boys?  Yeah, I've done a pretty good job of it for years, but how could I have predicted that hanging out at the police station would lead to hanging out with misfits?

I've been enjoying my citizens police academy class.  Today we were "deputized", but I had a hard time holding up my right hand and repeating after the officer when he was a goofball (in a good way) with a gun.  Today we learned about domestic violence calls and what makes a felony vs. misdemeanor in our state.  It was an interesting, if not difficult, class to sit through.  Perhaps because I am a bit more aware of those issues since my mother counsels people (mostly women and children) following rape or sexual assault.  I know that many cops, even in this town but probably more so in the rural town she lives in, don't view domestic abuse or domestic sexual assault as a crime and as a woman it was hard for me to sit in the passively in the class and listen to how officers view it from their side. 

We also covered accident reconstruction and investigation and I will never look at our streets the same.  I now know what the paint markings on the road mean, the various radio calls, and point of impacts on the road.  We've had a number of pedestrian vs. car accidents in the last 24 hrs and they talked about how you can tell how fast the driver was going based on where the pedestrian body landed on the car.  You can bet I'll be checking out the damage photos in the newspaper now.

Following class we were in the car lot working up a reconstruction of an accident when another cop car pulled up.  I recognized the person riding shotgun as one of the ED nurses I work with.  After talking with her and the other cop, I think I'm going to look into doing some ride around shifts with them.

The more I sit through class and listen to the officers talk, I realize that their department is really no different than being a nurse.  My dad is fond of repeating a Stephen King quote "SSDD".  Same sh*t, different day.  Or, in this case, same sh*t, different department. 

When my sister and I were shopping last week I was telling her about the classes (did you know you can approximate how drunk someone is by having their eyes track a slow moving object?  Yeah, it's cool) and she told me she could see me working as a cop.  I doubt I would pass the physical, but I do like the process of dissecting a situation and reconstructing the events.  Honestly, aside from the the guns, ammo, spit and curses it's not really different than what I am already doing. 

My nickname is the same throughout the hospital and no matter who is addressing me: trouble.  It doesn't matter if I am talking to the cafeteria direction, the janitor, the pulmonologist they all seem to believe that I am trouble.  So while I will admit the cops are some fun guys to hang out with, but I am a little afraid I could find trouble.  Even with them.