I've been reading through various Holidailies journals--even found a few favorites that I'm bookmarking to continue reading after this dare is over--and have realized that there are quite a large number of people who are either suffering in crappy, stressful jobs, or who are suffering in unemployment. I remember those days of crappy, stressful jobs, and I remember those days of unemployment. Okay, so I don't exactly make truckloads of money (I don't even make bicycle-loads of money!) but I continue to be thankful that I have such an interesting and rewarding career.

But, glamorous and pretty, it ain't. It is so NOT like TV!

The first ten or so hours of the shift last night were mind-numbingly boring. (They don't show that on COPS--the driving around in circles looking for anything!) I made a few traffic stops, but with my radar broken I was reduced to stopping cars for expired tags and missing headlights/tailights. Didn't write a single ticket. I'm a softy as far as administrative tickets go--it has to be pretty egregiously expired before I will write one.

Then about 4am a call came out that the city PD had a subject in custody who'd been caught breaking into cars on a used car lot (which happened to be in our jurisdiction so would we please come take the guy and do the report?) and that the other subject fled on foot.

So we get out there, and PD's K-9 is there as well, and the handler thinks he has a pretty decent track. Since I wasn't going to be the one writing the report, I volunteered to run with the handler on his track. (There has to be someone running with the handler during a track because the handler is so focused on watching his dog for tells that he won't notice if a bad guy jumps out at him.) We ran a track for about 20 minutes--more of a slow jog than running, but it's a slow jog in the dark through back yards and over trash piles and junk and fences wearing combat boots, brown polyester, and a duty belt. Then the K-9 lost the track, so we fanned out to search by streets (though it was a rather perfunctory search at this point since we thought that the guy had gotten a ride somewhere.) However, a few minutes later one of the officers reported seeing a male fitting the description running a couple of blocks over. We set up another perimeter. And waited. And watched. And swatted mosquitoes. Then, after about thirty minutes or so, while I was standing on a corner shooting the shit with the K-9 guy, we heard a shout about half a block down in some woods. He and I take off running toward the shouting (which was another officer in close foot pursuit) and see that they're in a little patch of woods on the other side of a vacant lot. So, we go tearing off across the lot to get to the officer (who I think by this time had the guy down on the ground.) Halfway across the lot we realize that it's mud. Not squishy slimy mud, but sticky, clay-filled mud, and with every step I ran across that lot I felt like I was picking up another 5 pounds of mud on my boots. Gaaah.

But we make it over there (along with half a dozen other officers), all of us grimacing in disgust at the mud. Bad guy gets arrested and gets hauled out of the woods. When we get to the street all of us start stomping our feet trying to get the caked mud off our boots. I have mud totally covering my boots and the bottom inch of my pants, and mud splatters halfway up my shins. I am sticky and grimy and muddy, and I smell. (We're talking major funk, here!)

One of the other deputies looked over at me as we walked back to my car (which was, of course, three blocks away now.) "Yeah," he said, "that's the way you're supposed to look at the end of a shift!"

Came home, shucked off the muddy smelly sweaty gross stuff. Chucked the washable stuff in the washer. Hung the vest over a chair and sprayed it liberally with Febreze. Stuck the boots by the back door with the mental promise that I would deal with cleaning them up when I woke up. Scrambled up some eggs ('cause I was starving!) Showered. Crashed.