My Awesome Cop Story...

"Dusty Ventures" (dustyventures)
09/15/2014 at 13:34 • Filed to: None

Last week I !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of being stopped and searched by a pair of cops one night. Now, for a completely different tale I want to share a story about an awesome cop, someone I like to call "Officer 'Yeah Buddy.'"

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[ONCE AGAIN, THIS IS NOT TO BE MAINPAGED]

For the next two weeks the Big E fair is taking place. The Big E is a massive fair that lasts 16 days and gets about 100,000 visitors per day. My friend Justin has his race shop right across the street from the main entrance, so for a little extra cash and the opportunity to keep co-driving his cars I work afternoons parking cars in his lot. My own shop is a mile away. I park in my shop's garage and, because I hate myself and want to punish my body for being blerchy, I run the mile from my shop to his.

I started doing this gig with last year's fair. There's one intersection where I have to cross the extremely busy main road, which for the fair is manned by an officer directing traffic. By my third day the officer started recognizing me when I was on approach and would stop the cross traffic so I'd hit the intersection in stride, instead of standing there waiting and jogging in place looking ridiculous. The second straight day he did this I put my hand up to high five him as I passed. He put his up and high fived me with an exclamation of "YEAH BUDDY!" For the rest of the fair that was our thing, he'd stop traffic for me (when he could, sometimes I'd have to wait for a little bit just because I hit the timing wrong) and we'd greet eachother with a high five and a loud exchange of "YEAH BUDDY!"

This year on my first day (Friday) I walked the route instead of running it, due to bringing along a backpack full of gear. As I approached the intersection I saw Officer Yeah Buddy working the intersection. Every day at that intersection he helps thousands of people cross, directs thousands of cars, not to mention the countless number of people he encountered on the job in the year since we last saw eachother. Even if he remembered the jogger from last year I knew he wouldn't recognize me as that weirdo.

Then he looked at me, and he grinned. And I knew. We high-fived as I walked across the street.

He wasn't there yesterday, and I'm off today, but tomorrow instead of just a high five I plan on stopping, shaking his hand, and thanking him for being the highlight of my day.