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today the glitterbomber is... |
2003-07-23 this is a good one. i was walking up to my car yesterday afternoon after work. i walk up the stairs past the basketball stadium to get to the garage, and on the grass by the sidewalk was a potted plant lying on its side. �what a nice plant that someone got rid of,� i thought. �i think i�ll give it a good home.� so i picked it up and continued on my way. when i was almost at the top of the stairs, i heard a voice behind me talking into a radio. �i�m pursuing the individual,� he said. i looked back and saw a campus police officer coming up the stairs. a glance around the otherwise empty area told me that i was the individual he was pursuing. at this point, i thought he had made a mistake because i certainly hadn�t done anything wrong. i waited for him with a confused look on my face�until he accused me of stealing the plant. i tried explaining to him that i didn�t know it was someone�s plant; i took it because i thought no one wanted it. he didn�t want to hear it, and took the plant from me and headed back down the stairs to give it to the woman i �stole� it from. (apparently, she put it outside to get some rain.) meanwhile, four other police officers showed up and started getting on my case. when i saw all them walking towards me, i said, �what the fuck? you need all these people because i took a plant?� i got called a smartass for that (twice). they didn�t want to hear me try to explain myself, either. they kept telling me that i could go to jail for what i did and that i should �think about what i�ve done.� �you should just apologize instead of arguing with us,� one snapped at me. i snapped right back, �i did, but you didn�t hear me.� after they were done telling me what a horrible person i am, i asked them what i was supposed to think when i saw five police officers and two police cars converge on me like that. i also mentioned that people discard plants around here all the time, which is true, and that i didn�t know it already belonged to someone. one of them took my name and address and all of that. i hope it gets written up in the �police blotter� section of the university newspaper because it�s just so fucking ridiculous. it must have been a slow crime day�i almost asked them if they had nothing better to do. actually, there were a lot of things i wanted to say, but i held my tongue. i just wanted to get out of there. i don�t like authority figures, and i really don�t like ones who act like that, especially when they are probably not even real police officers. i didn�t deserve to be treated with such disrespect, particularly when i hadn�t done anything wrong. i didn�t know whether to laugh or to cry. a couple people told me that i should file a complaint against them. i think i should, too. they could have been more understanding, and i would have been nicer. they also need to remember the whole �innocent until proven guilty� thing. and another thing�why the hell did the woman whose plant it was call the police? could she not have gotten off of her ass to tell me herself? what a day. *** after that fiasco, i went to get the first estimate on my car. there was a young woman working at the desk of the auto body shop. she wrote up the estimate herself, and i was impressed at how much she knew. she didn�t look like she was far out of her teens, and her hands and fingernails were dirty, so she might do some work herself. it�s not often that you see a woman doing that kind of work. she was also very friendly, as was the owner, so even if their estimate turns out to be the higher one, i might still go back there anyway. they put the damages at $745; i thought it would be higher, though it doesn�t matter, since i�m not paying for it. it was such a nice feeling to be in a car repair shop and not feel apprehensive at the cost. i just told them to charge me as much as they wanted. i did find out that, if i go through the other person�s insurance, they�ll pay for a rental car for me. since the work will probably take three days, i�ll need a car to get around. this presents another hassle because the guy who hit me doesn�t want to go through his insurance. i�ll have to use my powers of persuasion to get him to call his insurance company. if he refuses to, i�ll call them myself. i�m a take-charge kind of girl lately. it�s pretty scary. usually, i�m easily intimidated. let�s hope the new me sticks around. |
