Confessions of a Potential Bastard Cop

How I’d Use the Badge to Crack Down on Middle-Aged Schlubs with Pretty Young Things

1935 linoleum cut by Lin Shi Khan, part of a collection titled “Scottsboro Alabama” as referenced in Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen, with first word altered from original.

I recently met a retired policeman turned videographer I’ll call “Joe” who told me I’d make a good law enforcement officer. While I’ve often fantasized about being a homicide detective, I told him I could never fulfill the requirement of first working as a uniformed police officer.

Joe then detailed an encounter he had as a police officer he felt might change my mind. In short, he stopped a Black man riding an expensive bike and made the man prove the bike was his by calling the originating bike shop. While the cyclist was indignant at first about what he took to be racial profiling, he ultimately thanked Joe for ensuring that his property was with its rightful owner. According to Joe, the man was grateful.

What struck me most about this story was the uncanny familiarity that Joe, a non-cyclist, had with the price of the bike. He knew the cost of the frame, wheels, and components off the top of his head.

Is an ability to dominate on The Price is Right a prerequisite for a job in law enforcement?

I, myself, am incapable of accurately assessing the value of any kind of merchandise on sight. Questioning someone about the inanimate property in their possession doesn’t play to my talents. So what might I offer my community by way of the badge?

Fortunately, I have my own pet peeve — and complementary superpower — that might prove an asset to the force. Just as Joe doesn’t like seeing a person of color with a nice bike, I don’t like seeing a middle-aged schlub with a pretty young thing (PYT). And, like Joe, I have a preternatural knack for observing and challenging realities that vex me.

My superpower is this: I am able to spot a schlub with a PYT from a mile away and in any environment imaginable. I can clock a schlub with a PYT from across the dance floor at a crowded nightclub, from three blocks away in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, and from the other side of a murky lobster tank at a surf and turf restaurant. With my eagle eye, I can spy a schlub and PYT in a convertible on the gridlocked 405 Freeway from my…