The secret to my cheerful attitude is that I was born into a tribe that does not know how babies are made. None of our people have a clue where new life comes from. So all of us couple with each other whenever there’s a mutual desire to do so; we don’t make a big deal about it: the act is enjoyable and magical and sublime, and it ends rather quickly; then we return to whatever we were doing a moment before. It’s like grabbing a snack when you’re hungry. There’s no notion of ownership or anything like legal marriage; there’s zero jealousy: we’re all just a network of friendships. Some of our people stick together closer or more frequently than others; but it’s one big fun harmonious mingling kaleidoscope of lovingkindness. Of course, on occasion, our women find their tummies growing bigger; then, after a while, a babe slides out — a little human! — and we all thank our lucky stars for blessing the populace with a nice new neighbor. Everyone is eager to help raise the tyke. Children are adorable.
Then one day I wandered away from my tribe, because I was curious what was beyond the boundary of our known world. So I ended up in the United States of America. I passed my citizenship test and began to take master-level college courses in Science. I was shocked to learn that all of us human beings are the result of one cell from our father joining a cell inside our mother: we all come from the merger of two tiny cells. And then the mother eats food, and her stomach separates certain elements out of the sustenance and combines these things with the two-celled organism that is our earliest form, in order to make us have a body.
Just think about that: If you were to arrange a variety of dishes of food on a dining table, and, instead of consuming the banquet, you could use advanced tools to extract various elements from each course of cuisine — just like a mother’s stomach does — and remix these elements so that they produce hard bones, for the skeletal system; and then take other aspects from the food to make gorgeous flowing hair; and jelly-filled eyeballs that can roll around and espy graven images… I wonder what you’d need to do to a meal in order to get it to become the smooth skin of a forearm, or the slimy interior organs that serve all sorts of bodily functions. Could you make lungs that breathe and sneeze, using nothing but potatoes? (I assume that you’d need more types of food than that — but, as a scientist, we could do an experiment where we impregnate ourselves and eat nothing but french fries for nine months; then we can record the result, in our Science Notebook, when the babe is born healthy and wise: and this finding will get published in a respectable journal, so that others can benefit from our data.) Also think about blood: it is liquid when it’s circulating thru each human corpse’s inner tubing; but then when you invite this same blood to come outside of the body, into the open air, it gums up and hardens. And it can be used to tint epoxy floors vermillion.
So, truth is spellbinding. I really enjoyed my career as a famous scientist — I don’t regret a thing about it. But there comes a time in every man’s life when he must remove his lab smock and trade it in for a blue uniform, then pin a shining badge to his chest and become a cop. So, at the age of thirty-three, I joined the Police. I quickly got married and had a bunch of kids, so that there would be mouths to feed — this (I reasoned) would motivate me to work: I yearned to be the best Law Officer on the Force.
Police Academy was, in fact, surprisingly difficult — it was MUCH harder than rocket science. Rocket science is often used as the go-to example of something that’s unthinkably complicated; but that’s an exaggeration: all that rocket science really entails is the knowledge of math. Contrariwise, to be a cop, one must make moral decisions extemporaneously in high-pressure situations, all day, every day. Now THAT’s complex.
So I’m driving thru the neighborhood with my partner of seventeen years: Officer Dean.
“Well, my friend, what do you say we get some breakfast?” I said.
“Sounds good to me,” said Officer Dean.
“Anything you’re in the mood for, particularly?” I asked.
“I’m thinking biscuits and gravy,” said Officer Dean.
I held out one hand while keeping my other on the steering wheel to drive, and Dean slapped his own palm against my free hand in the “high five” manner.
“Biscuits and gravy, it is,” I almost sang. And I pulled into the restaurant whose neon sign said: “DINER”.
We enjoyed our breakfast, and the waitress was extra nice. In addition to the biscuits and gravy, we ordered coffee and orange juice; and, after the meal, each of us smoked a cigarette, and the waitress smoked with us.
Climbing back into the squad car, I asked Officer Dean: “Shall we take our first distress call?”
“Yes. — C.B. or hotline?” replied Dean.
“Why don’t we try the rotary,” I said. “I haven’t taken a landline call in a while. We’ll see what the people need. The people deserve a voice.”
So Officer Dean pressed one of the flashing keys on the hotline phone base after lifting its handset, while I pulled out of the diner’s parking lot and merged into traffic.
“Hello, this is Officer Dean speaking on behalf of myself and my partner, Officer Bryan Ray of the Eagan Police Department. How may we protect you and serve you?”
It turned out that the hotline call was coming from a young beautiful woman who was having trouble with what she called “her monthly visitor” — that is, the series of natural changes in hormone production and the structures of the uterus and ovaries of the female reproductive system was causing her discomfort.
“We’ll be right there,” said Officer Dean. “Do you want me to remain on the line?”
“No, that’s not necessary,” said the caller. “As long as I know that you’re racing to my location, I’ll take comfort in the knowledge that help is on the way.”
“Alright, I’ll hang up now,” said my partner, Officer Dean; but he remained on the line until he heard her own end click off, indicating that she had ended the call. Only then did he replace our handset on the telephone’s plungers. For he wanted to make sure that this woman got the very best treatment possible.
When we arrived, the beautiful young woman opened the door and welcomed us in. “Can I get you officers coffee?” she said.
“No, ma’am;” I said. “Thank you kindly, but we just ate breakfast and had coffee and orange juice at the diner down the street. Now, enough about us. YOU’RE the one who needs attention. What can we do to aid you?”
Following her instructions, we then ended up arranging some pillows on a couch so that the young woman could be comfortable. And I made her some tea, and Officer Dean prepared a hot pad, which she was happy to receive. We also administered some gentle medicine, which is commonly employed to treat minor aches and pains. Officer Dean sat near to the woman and smoothed her hair while I serenaded her with a guitar that I found in the corner of the room. (I am very good at playing acoustic guitar, and my style of singing makes your soul feel like melting butter.) Then, when we noticed that the woman had fallen asleep, we tiptoed around her abode and quietly cleaned up after our visit. Then I jotted a message on a notepad, explaining that we thought it was best to leave her alone while she slept; and I also wrote down our contact info so that she could reach us if she woke up and needed additional tender loving care.
Officer Dean and I then got back into our patrol vehicle and took another call. This next adventure took us to a mom-&-pop shop that sold reptiles. It turned out that one of their snakes had gone missing. So Officer Dean and I formed a two-man search party and scoured the area surrounding the shop, looking carefully everywhere. There was not a square inch of that landscape that we neglected investigating. And eventually we found the slithery little Escape Artist — he was hiding near the footpath right in back of the shop! I picked him up with my bare hands and brought him to the owners:
“He’s just a common garter snake,” I said, handing him over to the proprietors of the mom-&-pop shop. “My partner Dean and I probably could have found your friend much sooner, but we assumed we were searching for a giant python or anaconda.”
“Oh, no, ha-ha-ha,” said the Reptile Shop’s proprietors; “all our creatures are small and relatively harmless. Thank you so much for finding Pierre. How much do we owe you?”
I put up my hands and said “No charge — it’s our pleasure to help out members of the community. We’re financed entirely by your tax dollars.” Then, at this point, my flip-phone began to ring; so, after a struggle, I removed it from my thick black cop belt and said to the shop’s owners: “Pardon me, I need to take this — I’m sorry, I don’t normally get calls on my mobile phone, but we were helping a distressed citizen earlier today, and I gave her my personal cell number.” Then I pressed the button on the keypad labeled “ANSWER” and I said “Hello, this is Officer Bryan Ray speaking.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to bother you,” said the voice of the beautiful woman whom my partner and I had helped earlier in the day, “but I just wanted to thank you and Officer Dean for being so nice to me this morning.”
“It was our sincerest pleasure,” I said, smiling brightly. “Call us anytime you feel distress.” Then I flipped the phone back into its closed position, which terminated the call.
“Is there anything else that we can help you folks with today?” said my partner Dean to the Mom-&-Pop Reptile Shop’s proprietors.
“Oh, no, thank you again,” the shop owners answered. “We appreciate your service.”
“Yeah, no problem,” I lifted my hand high and waved as we were heading toward the exit door. “And, if I might make a suggestion,” I added, “it seems smarter to me if you would keep these reptiles in something other than bamboo cages — at least the snakes… Maybe put them in large plexiglass igloos or something. I’m just thinking that, if they can fit between the bars of their residence, they’ll keep getting out and running away, like Mister Pierre did this evening. You said that his name is Pierre, am I correct?”
“Yes, Pierre, that’s right,” said the owners of the shop.
“Yeah, so maybe upgrade the dormitories in your facility here, and you’ll see lower asset losses and higher success margins on your next zoological report.” I said. “That’s just my two cents.”
“Thanks! We’ll do that!” said the proprietors.
Then Officer Dean and I left the shop and got back in our squad car. It was dark outside, because the sun had gone down, and all the streetlamps were burnt out. So I dropped off my partner Dean at his apartment; then I drove back to my place and parked the patrol cruiser in the secret tunnel under the hay bales in my barn. Then, after feeding the horses, I went to bed.
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