Don't Act Like a Criminal

I am so weird around cops (and those of you who know me, yes I do realize this is ironic). I substitute teach occasionally and I just got hired on at a new school. The hiring process requires lots-o-paperwork and a thorough background check making sure I’m not a criminal or pedophile (The school is also a catholic school and required a seminar I had to go to. THAT is a whole other blog entry. Stay tuned). So included in this barrage of red tape I had to go through, I had to go to the police station to get fingerprinted.

I know. No big deal.

Maybe it’s because I’m an actor/writer and my imagination is constantly being worked and given mass doses of steroids. Maybe it’s because I haven’t always been the most law abiding citizen in the world (Nothing crazy i promise you. I mean who didn’t steal a gum from the 76 in grade school and stumble drunkenly down the street when they were in their 20‘s. And by “gum” I mean gap clothes and by “stumble drunkenly” I mean... Oh never mind). The origin doesn’t matter. The fact is I am totally nervous.
I go one evening to my local police department, check in and wait in the lobby. What’s happening in the lobby is interesting to me. A woman and a boy maybe 12 or 13 are talking to a sergeant. I eavesdrop. The boy is telling the officer about how he is being bullied at school. His mother is taking furious notes. Fucking junior high. In junior high something chemically changes in kids and makes transform from perfectly good and cute into into tremendous assholes willing to make the innocent eat cat shit. I was a naive skinny girl. I was good target back then. I nod to the kid understanding (I still am skinny. It’s just that super skinny models have made what I’ve always detested about myself okay, So keep on with the cocaine and anorexia ladies).
“Elizabeth Ann Navarro?” a short bald officer asks popping his head out of the door.
I snap back into the real reason I’m there. He used my full name. Really? Nothing worse to make me feel like I’m in trouble. My I walk back into the bowels of the station following this officer clutching my paperwork. He’s making some sort of small talk, but all that is running through my head is: Don’t act like a criminal. I’m not a criminal. Be cool. Act cool. You won’t be found out. There’s nothing to be found! Shut up Beth. Be cool! Remember cops are almost like real people.

Before I know it we are at the holding cells. I freeze. What the hell! Is this a trick? I start backing up.
“It’s through here,” the cop says. “ I like your purse by the way.”
Okaaaaaaay.
He leads me to the middle of the four cells they have there (none occupied thank god. I did not want to have a silence of the lambs moment). And there is the fancy finger printing station. This is no ink and paper operation. It’s all computerized now. I realize this is where people who’ve been arrested go to get finger printed too. He takes out some sanitizer and sprays down the machine. Well that’s good. While I’m waiting I start to get antsy and start tot want to do very inappropriate things. I want to grab his gun. Why do they have to make that so tempting??!? I want to rub his bald head. I want to get him in a choke hold and noogie him. I want to snap the cord of his radio repeatedly against his back.
My arm starts to raise of it’s own accord. Down arm down! Stop it Beth! But this is what goes through my head when I’m around cops. Welcome to my brain, grab a cocktail and enjoy the insanity.
“I’m ready for you!” He says with a weird grin on his face. I’m wondering if he’s like this when a murderous felon is being arrested.
I imagine him smiling a lazy smile at the criminal he’s caught telling him, he really likes his boots and grabbing his hands to fingerprint saying “Let’s get this show on the road, guy!”
There is something about fingerprint taking that I didn’t realize. It’s sort of an intimate process. He takes my hands. I tense up immediately. He tells me to relax them and make them all floppy.
“Let me look at your fingertips,” he says. “Yeah, those are nice.”
Okay that was sort of creepy.
The starts the fingerprinting process and to my relief unclicks the criminal box on my profile. It’s over in a few minutes. My fingerprints whiz through the system and I’m done.
The cop leads me out and winks saying, “Let’s hope you pass!” He’s joking, but that just speeds up the “Be cool. Don’t act like a criminal” monologue in my head. I leave the police station feeling like I got away with something (God I am so dramatic). What did I learn from this ordeal? Not much except I totally need to book something on Law and Order: Los Angeles or Southland. I am ready people.


Disclaimer: I do not think cocaine and anorexia are okay. It’s a joke people.