There goes the neighborhood....

There’s something surreally sobering when I realized that the doggy and jogger combo I saw this morning in my apartment complex was actually a K9 Unit. It was a moment where I thought to myself, “The police are always in the neighborhood. They patrol a lot. (That should mean something right there.) It’s not the best neighborhood in the world but this is normal. And yet I’m disturbed that this man is on foot…. With a dog… Something must have gone down. And now they are obviously looking for something. Probably something bad…really bad. I should probably just go home and call out from work”. I really couldn’t help but stop and wonder if the two were searching for illegal drugs, a corpse, an armed felon sneaking through the neighborhood (which could be pretty much anyone in the neighborhood), a doctor, or all of the above. Honestly I think I’d feel much better if they were actually hunting down the little shits that keep discharging the fire extinguishers in the buildings.

My “surreally sobering” moment suddenly turned all too “real” and all too “worrying” when the fuzzy officer stopped searching and just started staring at me. Now don’t get me wrong. I like dogs. (With the exception of the tiny yappy things with Napoleonic Syndrome.) My family in NY has a long haired German Shepherd who is absolutely my buddy. But this dog dripped with cruel intentions. He had a gleam in his eyes that said, “one move. One tiny move and your balls become a squeaky chew toy!”. I’m sure he was trained that way, but my balls and myself only cared about not being near him. (I’m serious. It was that hardened “I done time in the slammer” type of stare that makes your ass clench and your junk retreat into your abdominal cavity.) Actually I think it was the fact that the pooch took a notice of me that incited my onset of awkward and unwarranted paranoia. (I hadn’t done anything wrong. What was I worrying about?)

Well of course since the pup noticed me the human officer decides to speak to me. (by the way, I say pup but he was a full grown German Shepherd….. on steroids… super steroids… from space.) The exchange went like this.

Officer: Good morning sir.

Me: Good morning sir. (You always say “Sir” to an officer. Because they have batons and GUNS)

Officer: We’re just doing a routine check here. We’ve been told that kids like to hang out in the park area, do some underage drinking, and other things. There were also reports of drug use.

Me: Oh. Yeah I’ve seen them at the park late at night. I really didn’t think much of it. They just looked like noisy teenagers.

Officer: Have you noticed anything odd in your neighborhood lately?

Me: Honestly sir, I go to work and then come straight home. I generally keep to myself. (Internally I thought, “Aw crap. That’s going to land me on some sort of ‘watch this guy’ list.”)

Officer: You should be a little more aware of the happenings in the neighborhood, sir. We don’t know if something is happening until you tell us.

And with that they left. My butt unclenched, my genitals slowly came out of hiding, and I was able to move along.

I really need to move.