2001-07-17 - 11:42 p.m.

Alien Police Station

This is going to make me sound like a heartless bastard, but today I wandered over to the Frown Town police station to start the final stage of protesting the check my neighbors bounced on me. It's too bad that they got burned out of their apartment, but I want my ninety dollars back, dammit!

Also, to be absolutely precise about it, it's not them that owes me the money, it's the sister of the wife who was the one passing the bad paper.

Basically the last step of the process involves me going to the police station and giving them the check and all the paperwork I've gotten from the bank. Then, the police issue a warrant for the bad check writer. After that, hilarity ensues. Or not.

In all the years I've been in business, I've only had to go all the way through this process only once before. Nearly always the bad check writer makes good on the check, or the check is too small to bother chasing them down.

The whole thing was kind of a déjà vu experience because I'd forgotten all the steps of the process but they all seemed familiar to me once I was doing them.

Before I headed over to the police station today I made a tactical mistake. I noticed that there was still a little bit of grasshopper left in the refrigerator from the little party Lily and I had a couple nights ago. So, I finished it off. While it still tasted really good, it definitely lowered my IQ for the next several hours.

The most obvious sign of this was when I went to park my car in front of the police station. The lot next to the station seemed to be for employees only, so I parked on the street. Luckily there was an empty spot with a meter with time on it right in front of the station. Unfortunately the spot was a tight fit, and my parallel parking skills were not what they used to be. I used to have to parallel park every day when I lived in my old house, but it had been months since my skills in that regard had been tested and I was definitely rusty. So rusty in fact, that I gave the car in front of me a little nudge.

There were actually people in the car, and they were a little annoyed. However when we looked at the cars we couldn't see any damage. I apologized profusely and they just shrugged and told me to forget about it.

If you're going to hit someone, in front of the police station is not the place to do it. I'm lucky they decided to ignore it rather than call 1-800-MEAN-LAYWERS on me.

I went inside the police station and waited for the person behind the reception desk to notice me.

I just have to describe the Frown Town police station.

I would hazard a guess and say that it was built in the late 1960s/early 1970s. It is a squat, angular structure made entirely of patterned concrete. I remember there was a building a lot like it on the campus of the college I attended. There it was the campus arts center, and it was funky, in a hostile sort of way. That kind of artsy architecture was an utter failure as a police station. Various touches that I think were meant to appear as artistic and humanizing instead looked clumsy and non-functional. It looked like some sort of bunker that aliens had build millennia ago, and now it was filled with human squatters and their belongings. The place was designed to make the employees feel as unwelcome as the visitors.

The lady behind the reception desk buzzed me through a black door that lead to the second floor where the detective division was.

As soon as I walked through the door I remembered that I'd been here before - when I protested the first check, years ago.

As I was trudging up the stairs I noticed red-brown smear on the wall at the bottom of the first landing. Oops! Looks like someone had fallen and bled there. You'd think that it would be good public relations for the police to clean up stray bloodstains like that.

Anyway, the secretary in the detectives division had me fill out some paper work (just like last time, I remembered) and then typed up some forms and in a few minutes I was on my way again. I recollect it taking longer last time.

I imagine the odds aren't good that I'll see my ninety dollars again, although I don't imagine the woman would be start hard to find. Her driver's license number was written on the check. To my surprise they actually caught the other guy who wrote the bad check on me some months after I went through the song-and-dance at the police station. I went to court, right there in the police station, and the guy was ordered to pay me my money. The police then surprised me by asking if I thought the guy should go to jail. I had no idea that such things would be left up to me, but I think it had to do with me pressing charges or not. I told them that I saw no reason to put the guy in jail - I just wanted my money back.

This time...

Well, I'll have to see how I feel when the time comes. IF the time comes.