A Profile Ain't Just A Side View

Oh yeah. Funny incident of the month. Me, my son and a cousin were riding bikes to the store to grab some groceries. On the way back we got profiled. It was kinda slick how the cops did it too. I mean these two ain't the best riding partners since I frequently had to look for them to see where they were. And as usual with the black male of 17 years vintage, they had great difficulty with taking things seriously. Now I am riding at a slow but steady pace. These two fools are every damn where but with me. On the sidewalk, then across the street to the other sidewalk, bumping each other, half a block back, a whole block back. Generally acting asses. I mentioned that particular thing to them when we got to the store.

On the way back, the started the same bullshit again. I pretended not to notice that they were doing it and had decided to quit wasting time waiting for them since they were obviously in play mode. I had seen the cop in his patrol car but pretty much ignored the fact that he was there. Except when I made my own rapid crossover from the wrong side of the street to the right one. I promptly forgot about him when I ran through the hole in the street. I was distracted by the musical tones coming out of my spokes, never heard that before.

I turn the corner and get my stroke on so I could get home and eat. Next thing I know a squad car rides up next to me slowly. My first thought was to be annoyed, I am sure it showed on my face. I wondered what the hell I did wrong. Then he said "Excuse me, are those guys on the bikes bothering you?" I think my face also betrayed the shock I felt. My response, "Bothering me?" I looked back to make sure who he was talking about. "No, they are not bothering me. They are SUPPOSED to be riding up here WITH ME!" I guess he was a little satisfied with that since he said "Okay, I was just checking." Not to be rude, I said, "Thank you officer! You have a good one!"

At this point I am DYING inside with laughter! They caught up after he pulled off. "What did he want?" Trying my best to (unsuccessfully) contain my bemusement I told them, "Um... he just wanted to know if you two were harassing me..." The looks on their faces were priceless! I almost fell off my bike laughing. "Now do you think the two of you could keep up before we all get arrested up out in here for riding while tanned?" So we hit the next two turns and hit the home stretch. I look around and see two bikes riding away from me. One in the park to the left, the other into the park to the right. You'd think they would have learned. So I turn my had toward home and focus on timing the traffic light so I don't have to stop. I notice that the cop who rode up to me was just turning that corner up ahead. Then I hear ANOTHER cop car! This one toggles the siren switch. You know the way they do to make that noise to get your attention. My head quickly turns with a REALLY annoyed look on my face. He keeps going by. I get to the light and lil' cuz catches up. He is mumbling something hateful and violent about cops. I tell him to cool his jets, it ain't worth the blood pressure spike. He then tells me that the second cop with the siren had slowed down to give him the "I'm watching you" signal. This kinda pissed me off a touch and made me laugh a little. My reply to him was, "Shit, don't worry yourself over it, neither of those cops was Black OR Jewish, they are the ones who look out of place around here! Now do you think you could keep up now?"

Got home and relayed the story to the ladies and we had a pretty good laugh about it. Especially after I thought about it and mentioned that the way they were riding, they did look like they were out there fucking with people. I couldn't resist adding a moral to that story...

Captain's Log: Supplemental

Well, here I am for my obligatory twice a month posting.
Okay...
Kidding really.

Just ain't been able to write much lately. I guess I feel guilty that the time spent should be used chasing paper that seems nonexistent to me personally. I don't even spend as much time on Facebook. And I did that largely to chat jack you all and my family and friends. But you didn't come here to hear about my economic troubles. And I didn't come here to write about them. Plenty has been said about that as it is.

My campaign to "retake the bridge" as outlined in my last post has netted good results. Some underlying issues still have to be ironed out. The youngin's are still struggling with coming of age and being under the roof at the same time. But as usual, that means they are struggling with desires against requirements. Sucks for them. I will not be deterred. I do what I do to improve things. If they feel a bit of discomfort, then they are likely one of the hurdles to improvement. Mostly to themselves or the group as a whole. Time runs short to whip them into shape. The bulk of the work has been done. But the devil is in the details they say. It is the details that are causing the problems.

The fact that one could give a shit saddens me greatly. He will be 18 in less than 30 days. He could not tell me what his plans for his future are. This nearly had me in tears. A manchild born with brown skin in the United States who in 2009 just rolls with whatever anyone decides for him while on the cusp on the adulthood. Tragedy just doesn't even begin to describe this situation. He is taking a voc-tec program where he has changed direction twice since Labor Day. Yet he says that it is what he REALLY wants to do. Yet he has not convinced me. I am starting to think he is wasting his time in the program. I am tempted to have him removed and back to his regular school full time to ensure that he graduates on time. But I don't know if it would be the right thing to do because I just don't know where he is trying to get to. And he either can't tell me, or he won't. That and his discovery of the female type (too soon for him I think!) has taken a strange and possibly disturbing twist. Since these kids only listen to what they want to hear, he has taken half of the advice given him. He got this thing about being a one woman man, yet they come and go so fast that we can't keep track. I told him that getting serious was the last thing he needed in his life right now, for several good reasons. I mentioned that he should have five at the same time and not get too deeply involved until he figured out what he really wanted. His interpretation is that he should have five in a row and try to get deeply involved, until they showed tendencies toward insanity. I think he really missed the point on that one. Oh well, I just hope he is on his own before he encounters the crazy stalker one. I would hate to have to pull my belt off and whoop somebody eles's daughter's ass because she did that Jasmine Sullivan shit on MY car!

The other one has some strange space issues. More important, if somebody ain't using it RIGHT NOW then it is okay for her to do what she will. NOT okay since the inherent laziness means that places on the property, in and out, end up being dumping grounds for her half assedness. She has an uncanny knack for uttering "I don't see what the problem is". This is in response to things such as:

• Bringing home strays, human and animal.
• "Cleaning" by shifting shit from one place to another.
• Ignoring blatantly obvious yard issues.
• Mistreatment of the dog.
• Her own part in FUBAR situations.
• Lightfingering other people's shit.

Okay, let's just say it is a catchall for her just being irresponsible. For instance, yesterday I put them both on the path to refurbishing the property in general. I mentioned a bag of yard waste. This bag of yard waste had busted because my kids insisted on throwing the dirt away. I told them NOT TO throw the dirt in the bag because only the green stuff needed to be removed. Instead of dumping the dirt back into the flower bed, THEY decided to press on as before. The yard waste never got picked up because the bag was too heavy. The chose to ignore me again when I told them to unload the bag and return ONLY the green stuff to the bag, it would get picked up then. They didn't, it rained, they finally tried to move it, the bag broke, they tried to pretend they didn't see the mess, I tripped. Now the bag in question, still full of dirt, made it as far as the driveway next to the house. It is still there. All the green done dried up and is probably compost now. Somehow they can't figure out how to move apparently. In spite of me giving pretty detailed instructions, several times, that a shovel and walking would be involved. But now the dry season has worn off. So the dirt is gonna get heavier and heavier the more it rains. ALL of this I explained to the both of them yesterday. I did this because she said "I don't see why it is a problem. It has been sitting there all this time. Nobody can see it." The paragraph above is PART of my response. The short version of the rest was that she must be a blind ass idiot to even think to tell such an obvious lie.

Sigh... I could write a book on each of them. But to be honest, I am just too damn lazy. Especially since I would feel obligated to write on about my own issues, just to be fair. And I just ain't got the time or energy or desire to write those three books.