Early one morning at 2:30 AM, the phone started ringing off the hook. When I answered it, it was the staff duty officer for the area support group at Fort Lewis, Washington. The area support group commander at Fort Lewis had called an Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise (EDRE) alert. I grabbed my rucksack, my helmet, and my load-bearing equipment out of the closet and put them by the door. I checked the weather outside. It was frosty and clear, which meant the weather would be cold. I grabbed my field jacket and gloves as well. When I had everything collected that I would need, I got dressed and put everything into the car. I chose to take the Fiat spider 2000, rather than the Chevy van because the stereo in the car worked better than the stereo in the van. The amplifier in the van had a problem with one of the channels. I would have to fix that sooner or later, but I hadn’t found the time to do it yet. I also chose the Fiat because I could crank the music really loud for two reasons. First, I could crank the music to keep me awake. Second, I could crank the music to help power the car. Since the EDRE had been called so early in the morning, I would not be able to stop and get my normal fix of sugar for the donut patrol should the need arise. The nearest place to stop for donuts was Kolby’s Donut House, but it didn’t open until 4:00 AM. The next nearest place to get donuts didn’t open until 5:00 AM. I suppose I could have gone into the Safeway and bought some of their cheesy pastries. But here’s the thing with Safeway pastries. They are not baked fresh when you buy them. They’re packed in these packages of Styrofoam and plastic wrap. So, they are kind of, I won’t say soggy, but kinda mushy. If you’ve ever purchased grocery store pastries, you know exactly what I’m trying to say. If you’re starving and you need a sugar fix really, really bad, grocery store pastries will do the job. Otherwise, do not touch them with a 10-foot pole. Don’t even take them if they’re free. So, I was taking a calculated risk driving the Fiat with no ‘insurance’, so to speak. Don’t get me wrong, I had automobile insurance. That’s not the kind of insurance I’m talking about. I’m referring to donut patrol insurance. See, certain types of cars are donut magnets. The Fiat spider is one of them. Anyway, I had started to take measures to protect myself against possible repercussions from zealous donut agents. I like to call it donut insurance. If you know that the donut patrol loves to spend a majority of their time eating donuts, why not insure yourself by carrying a bit of the ‘hair of the dog’ so to speak. If you’ve never heard the phrase ‘hair of the dog,’ you’ve lived a very sheltered life and you’ve never had a hangover. To put it another way, donuts are antivenom. Of course, that assumes that police are venomous snakes that are just waiting to bite you. And when they bite, they sink a lot of venom into you. Here, venom is the ticket, and a lot refers to the dollar amount of the ticket. Alrighty then. I set out on my usual route to Fort Lewis, and I didn’t even get off of Pacific Avenue before some bozo donut patrol hit the bubblegum machine and gave me the red light special. When this ole boy finally crawled out of his donut cruiser, it visibly lifted on the driver side. I actually thought I heard the shocks on his car sigh in relief, but I must’ve been hearing things. He had to have packed at least 310 pounds of pure lard into his six-foot frame. If Crisco were using people as their spokes models, he would’ve been the perfect candidate. When he walked up past the rear of my car, he slapped his baton against the plastic rear window of the ragtop on my Fiat. Since it was so cold outside, the plastic window split in two pieces straight down the middle with a loud crack. “CRACK!” When the big beefy patrolman got to my window, the first thing I said was, “Your first mistake was assaulting my car, Badge Number 514. The Sheriff’s Department will pay for that, and it just may come out of your paycheck. Now, why did you stop me?” The donut patrol replied, “I’m sorry about your window. I didn’t expect it to break. Tough luck. Driver’s license and registration please. I pulled you over because your right brake light doesn’t work.” “Do you break windows on all of the donut shops too? You didn’t expect plastic to break in this cold ass weather, you dipshit? And let’s just see if my brake lights don’t work. I took out an ice scraper and pushed it against the brake pedal to hold the brake pedal down, then I got out of the car. I walked around to the back with the patrolman. Then I asked, “Which brake light isn’t working?” The donut patrol replied, “I could have sworn that the right one wasn’t working.” “Yeah. Well, it sure seems to be working now. You must have been too busy eating donuts to pay attention. Tell you what, just write my ticket so I can go to court, because I want to file a claim in court against the Sheriff’s Department. You’re going to pay for my window. You dumb shit.” So, the rather foolish looking donut patrol wrote my ticket and I headed to work. A couple of weeks later, I had a court date. I put on my dress greens and went down to the courthouse. When my case was called before the judge, I appeared and was sworn in. The judge asked me why I was there. I explained that I had been pulled over for a brake light being out that wasn’t really faulty. The judge didn’t quite understand, so she asked me again why I was there. I said, “Your honor, not only did the Sheriff’s deputy pull me over for something that wasn’t wrong, but when he approached my car, he slapped the rear plastic window of the ragtop on my car with his baton, causing it to split into two pieces straight down the middle. I have pictures to show the damage.” The judge replied, “Normally, you would go to Small Claims Court for something like this. But since it’s in conjunction with a traffic stop, I will allow it. Let me see the pictures.” I showed the judge my pictures of the damage. Then she asked, “Do you have an estimate of the cost to fix the damage?” I replied, “I do your honor. As a matter of fact, there are only two places in town that do this kind of work, and I got estimates from both places.” I showed the estimates to the judge. The judge looked at the estimates and then she said, “I find in the plaintiff’s favor for $1263 to repair the damage caused by the Sheriff’s Department to be paid by the Sheriff’s Department out of their training funds.” About a week later, I received a check from the Sheriff’s Department for $1263 to fix my ragtop. I’ll bet that Sheriff’s deputy was thinking that was one helluva batch of expensive donuts. He’s lucky I didn’t charge him for my lost time as well because he did make me jump through hoops on this exercise in futility.
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