Words of Wisdom from the Not-So-Wise

[J. T./Jessica]

"You're confusing us with heroes who are Lawful-Stupid." -- 'Aragorn', DM of the Rings.

[J. T./Jessica]

"It's awkward having a policeman around the house. Friends drop in, a man with a badge answers the door, the temperature drops 20 degrees.

You throw a party and that badge gets in the way. All of a sudden there isn't a straight man in the crowd. Everybody's a comedian. "Don't drink too much," somebody says, "or the man with a badge'll run you in." Or "How's it going, Dick Tracy? How many jaywalkers did you pinch today?" And then there's always the one who wants to know how many apples you stole.

All at once you lost your first name. You're a cop, a flatfoot, a bull, a dick, John Law. You're the fuzz, the heat; you're poison, you're trouble, you're bad news. They call you everything, but never a policeman.

It's not much of a life, unless you don't mind missing a Dodger game because the hotshot phone rings. Unless you like working Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, at a job that doesn't pay overtime. Oh, the pay's adequate-- if you count pennies you can put your kid through college, but you better plan on seeing Europe on your television set.

And then there's your first night on the beat. When you try to arrest a drunken prostitute in a Main St. bar and she rips your new uniform to shreds. You'll buy another one-- out of your own pocket.

And you're going to rub elbows with the elite-- pimps, addicts, thieves, bums, winos, girls who can't keep an address and men who don't care. Liars, cheats, con men-- the class of Skid Row.

And the heartbreak-- underfed kids, beaten kids, molested kids, lost kids, crying kids, homeless kids, hit-and-run kids, broken-arm kids, broken-leg kids, broken-head kids, sick kids, dying kids, dead kids. The old people nobody wants-- the reliefers, the pensioners, the ones who walk the street cold, and those who tried to keep warm and died in a $3 room with an unventilated gas heater. You'll walk your beat and try to pick up the pieces.

Do you have real adventure in your soul? You better have, because you're gonna do time in a prowl car. Oh, it's going to be a thrill a minute when you get an unknown-trouble call and hit a backyard at two in the morning, never knowing who you'll meet-- a kid with a knife, a pill-head with a gun, or two ex-cons with nothing to lose.

And you're going to have plenty of time to think. You'll draw duty in a lonely car, with nobody to talk to but your radio.

Four years in uniform and you'll have the ability, the experience and maybe the desire to be a detective. If you like to fly by the seat of your pants, this is where you belong. For every crime that's committed, you've got three million suspects to choose from. And most of the time, you'll have few facts and a lot of hunches. You'll run down leads that dead-end on you. You'll work all-night stakeouts that could last a week. You'll do leg work until you're sure you've talked to everybody in the state of California.

People who saw it happen - but really didn't. People who insist they did it - but really didn't. People who don't remember - those who try to forget. Those who tell the truth - those who lie. You'll run the files until your eyes ache.

And paperwork? Oh, you'll fill out a report when you're right, you'll fill out a report when you're wrong, you'll fill one out when you're not sure, you'll fill one out listing your leads, you'll fill one out when you have no leads, you'll fill out a report on the reports you've made! You'll write enough words in your lifetime to stock a library. You'll learn to live with doubt, anxiety, frustration. Court decisions that tend to hinder rather than help you. Dorado, Morse, Escobedo, Cahan. You'll learn to live with the District Attorney, testifying in court, defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, judges, juries, witnesses. And sometimes you're not going to be happy with the outcome.

But there's also this: there are over 5,000 men in this city, who know that being a policeman is an endless, glamourless, thankless job that's gotta be done.

I know it, too, and I'm damn glad to be one of them."

-- Det. Sgt. Joe Friday, "Dragnet", 'The Interrogation'.

...A little something for me to remember...

[J. T./Jessica]

"For the last time, I don't have anger issues. I just prefer to solve my problems with violence."

[J. T./Jessica]

A word of advice to table-top D&D-type gamers;

Double-check your character sheet before you show it to the DM, there are some things that are best NOT forgotten.
www.reallifecomics.com/archive/011211.html

[J. T./Jessica]

Magni-scope for Scorpios; Oct. 22 2007:
"Your tolerance level for stupidity has been reached. It's only Monday. Take a day off or the week will be filled with a sword-armed rampage."

[J. T./Jessica]

Magnus' Laws of Law Enforcement:

"If you run, you'll only go to jail tired."

"Cops REALLY hate it when you waste their time."

[J. T./Jessica]

"Take your hands off the car, and I'll make your birth certificate a worthless document."

"Remember, when you gotta cuff 'em.... nobody is your friend."

"Can you run faster than 1,200 feet per second?" (if you aren't a shooter, that is the average speed of a 9mm projectile (slug)).

"So, you don't know how fast you were going. I guess that means I can write anything I want on the ticket, huh?"

"You can't outrun a radio."

"Yes sir, you can talk to the shift supervisor, but I don't think it will help. Oh, did I mention that I am the shift supervisor?"

"Warning! You want a warning? O.K., I'm warning you not to do that again or I'll give you another ticket."


"The answer to this last question will determine whether you are drunk or not. Was Mickey Mouse a cat or dog?"

"Some people are meant to be cops, and some people are meant to call the cops."

"God made tomorrow for the crooks we don't catch today."

"Yeah, we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster oven."

"Life's tough, it's tougher if you're stupid."

"Bulletproof vests aren't."

"Law abiding citizens sleep peacefully in their beds, solely because dedicated men and women stand ready to do violence in their behalf."

"In God we trust, all others we run through NCIC."

"No sir, we don't have quotas anymore. We used to have quotas, but now we're allowed to write as many tickets as we want."

"Law enforcement is not a spectator sport."

"I know, I know, your kid is an honor student at the juvenile detention center."

"I'm glad to hear the chief of police is a good, personal friend of yours. At least you know someone who can post your bail."

"We don't hire cops in this department, we hire common sense and make cops from it."

"I don't believe they should use the electric chair, they need to use electric bleachers."

Drake's Laws of Law Enforcement

1. 'Bullet Proof' vests aren't.

2. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. They also punch, kick and choke harder too.

3. The speed at which you respond to a fight call is inversely proportional to how long you've been a cop.

4. Tear gas works on cops too, and regardless of wind direction, will always blow back in your face.

5. High speed chases will always proceed from an area of light traffic to an area of extremely heavy traffic.

6. If you know someone who tortures animals and wets the bed, he is either a serial killer or he works for Internal Affairs.

7. Placing a gun back in a shoulder holster with your finger on the trigger will cause you to walk with a limp.

8. Flash hiders don't really.

9. If you have 'cleared' all the rooms and met no resistance, you and your entry team have probably kicked in the door of the wrong house.

10. If a cop swings a baton in a fight, he will hit other cops more often than he will hit the bad guys he swings at.

11. Domestic arguments will always migrate from an area of few available weapons (living room), to an area with many available weapons (kitchen).

12. If you have just punched out a handcuffed prisoner for spitting at you, you are about to become a star on 'Eyewitness News'.

13. Bullets work on veteran cops too. They also work on weight lifters, martial arts experts, department marksmen, Vice cops, S.W.A.T. jocks, and others who consider themselves immortal.

14. When a civilian sees a blue light approaching at a high rate of speed, he will always pull into the lane the cop needs to use.

15. If you drive your patrol car to the geometric center of the Gobi Desert, within five minutes a dumb-ass civilian will pull along side you and ask for directions.

16. You can never drive slow enough to please the citizens who don't need a cop, and you can never drive fast enough to please the ones who do.

17. Any suspect with a rifle is a better shot than any cop with a pistol.

18. From behind you, the bad guys can see your night sights as well as you can.

19. On any call, there will always be more 'bad guys' than there are good guys, and the farther away your back-up, the more there will be.

20. The longer you've been a cop, the shorter your flashlight and your temper gets.

21. Whatever you are about to do, if there is a good chance it will get you killed, you probably shouldn't do it.

22. You should never do a shotgun search of a dark warehouse with a cop whose nickname is "Boomer".

23. The better you do your job, the more likely you are to be shot >injured, complained on, sued, investigated, or subpoenaed on your day off.

24. If a large group of drunk bikers is "holed-up" in a house, the Department will send one officer in a beat car. If there is one biker"holed-up" in a house, they will send the entire S.W.A.T. Team.

The Alabama Trooper

Two guys are driving through Alabama when they get pulled over by a state trooper. The trooper walks up and taps on the window with his nightstick. As the driver rolls down the window, the trooper smacks him in the head with the stick.

The driver says, "Why'd you do that?

The trooper drawls, "You're in Alabama, son. When I pull you over you'll have your license ready."

The driver rubs his head and says, "I'm sorry, officer. I'm not from around here."

The trooper runs a check on the guy's license, and he's clean. He gives the guy his license back and walks around to the passenger side and taps on that window. The passenger rolls his window down, and the trooper smacks him with the nightstick.

The passenger says, "What'd you do that for?"

The cop says, "Just making your wishes come true."

"Huh?" says the passenger.

The cop replies, "I know that two miles down the road you're gonna say, 'I wish that jerk would've tried that crap with me.'"

Top 10 Police Comeback Lines


1. I'm sorry Ma'am, but with the unlicensed gun in your purse plus the DWI, you ARE a real criminal.

2. Hey John, get out of the cruiser and come over here to say "Thank You". We stopped the guy who pays OUR salary!

3. Yeah, I do have bank robbers to catch, but that might be dangerous, so I'm going to play it safe and write you this ticket.

4. Hurry it up? Sure, I'll just go back to the cruiser and write the citation. Do you have food and water in the car? This shouldn't take more than six hours.

5. Do you know why I stopped you, or do you THINK like you Drive?

6. What do you mean I won't believe you? Just because you've got three kilos of Smack and two bodies in the trunk doesn't mean there isn't a perfectly reasonable explanation.

7. No, you've got that WRONG. I'm even TOUGHER without the badge and gun.
(J.T.: One of my personal favorites.)

8. Of course you didn't DO it. You just happened to start your wind sprints in front of the department store, the VCR is Extra weight, and the security guards were providing MOTIVATION.

9. She STARTED it? That's the best you can do? My four-year-old does better than that when I ask why his sister is crying.

10. HAVE A NICE DAY.

[J. T./Jessica]

Magnus' Laws of Law Enforcement:

"If you're not being called an S.O.B., you're not doing your job."

[J. T./Jessica]

Magnus' Laws of Law Enforcement

"Routine calls aren't."

[J. T./Jessica]

Magnus' Laws of Law Enforcement

"When it comes to 'I'll be back', Governor Schwartzaneger has nothing on police officers who have to return to addresses of repeat offenders."

[J. T./Jessica]

"Uh... Arizona for life, Gretchen." - My husband while Gretchen Wilson's 'California Girls' was on CMT.

[J. T./Jessica]

"Life is like every day,
Walking in on act three of a four act play." -- Anon.

[J. T./Jessica]

"Shooting people solves everything."

[J. T./Jessica]

"Adding a new PC to the party means inviting an unknown and dangerous-looking stranger to join your group of otherwise paranoid and greedy adventurers. There's pretty much no way to roleplay it so that it doesn't sound stupid.
Imagine if someone did this to you in real life: You're walking down the street and bump into a three random guys who invite you to to join in on assault and robbery; offering you a one-quarter stake in everything and a very real chance at severe bodily harm, without bothering to ask for your name or qualifications.

It's ridiculous. That sort of thing never happens unless you're in Detroit. " -- 'Chuck Says', from "Chainmail Bikini".

[J. T./Jessica]

Honestly heard a few minutes ago;

"Something in here smells like Satan's underpants" said by the idiot I married while he was searching through the fridge.