But the Quality Is Still There
Sunday, June 1st, 2008[I've never gotten around to finishing this, and knowing me, I never will. Publish what yeh got. If I get any requests to finish this … <hint><hint>]
You never know what you’re going to see on back roads in the middle of the night, even here in Utah. Who would expect to see many cars driving out into the desert—as a destination, mind you—at midnight? Not me, that’s for sure.
Apparently the Little Sahara Sand Dunes (35 miles west of Nephi, Utah) are quite a popular spot around Easter/Spring Break time. I’ve been told that you see all kinds of craziness if you go, including runners-up for the coveted Beverly Hillbillies award. This award would go to the vehicle with the most stuff straped, roped, tied, or piled on their vehicle. Couches are, I’m told, a not-infrequent item, worth quite a few points towards your final hillbilly score.
Heck, I got to see honest-to-goodness ‘shrooms for the first time Friday night. Yes, that kind of ‘shroom. I know, you’re thinking to yourself, “What kind of a sheltered life has he led?!” but I make no excuses.
It was part of a traffic check-point. In my duties as a member of the SCATeam, I occasionally get to help the Sheriff’s Office with things like traffic stops. I pulled the late shift (2200h – 0230h), and thought it was going to be a pretty quiet night … I’d never worked this traffic check-point before, and was I ever mistaken.
At that time of night, nearly every other car had someone begging to get in trouble with the law. I lost track of the number of drunks we pulled out from behind the wheel. The deputies made several impressive catches of people “under the influence” of some mind-altering agent or another. I’m just glad I wasn’t driving with these idiots.
The best quote of the night was a conversation in the MICC about 2330h. A deputy, looking out the window (and probably hoping we could go home a little earlier than planned), noted that it didn’t look very busy outside, and was answered by another deputy who had just come in from the cold to warm up:
“Well, the traffic seems to be thinning out.”
“Yeah, but the quality is still there.”
Things yet to comment on…
- K9 units
- list of drugs
- running mini-dispatch
- vargal (sp?) nerve
- “barfin’ up coffee grounds”
- meat thermometer
“I don’t do this for the entertainment factor.
“I’m here to try to help the people who have proven they are incapable of making good choices. I want to get them into a system that can hopefully help them learn from their mistakes and start making good choices.
“But I’m not denying it’s not a hoot sometimes.”