The Best Police Report I Ever Wrote

The best police report I ever wrote only existed for about thirty minutes. It took me about three times that long to write it. I should warn you that this story contains graphic violence and is not for the faint of heart. Here's the whole true story:

Being a cop is a weird job sometimes. This bears repeating... it's a weird job. When I was a rookie officer, I was dispatched to one of the local campgrounds on a skunk problem. The caller was the campground host and he was distraught. A skunk had climbed into a dumpster full of old camping garbage through a small drain hole at the bottom and ate so much that when it tried to get back out it got stuck, Winnie the Pooh style, with only its head and two front paws sticking out of the drain hole. That skunk had sprayed and sprayed. These kinds of calls are terrible because there isn't really a playbook for what you do here. By the time I got there, even the camp host had fled. It was just me and the skunk...

Let me set the stage for this epic showdown. The agency I work for does not have animal control officers. It is up to the guys, or gals P.C. Police, to figure out what to do when there is an animal problem. Did I mention that I was a rookie at the time? That plays a role here too, so does the fact that I carry a Colt .45 as my duty weapon. You see where this is headed right? You can still stop reading and look away... Anyway, it was early October, the weather was beautiful and I had just started my twelve hour shift.

As soon as I pulled into the campground I could smell the skunk and it was awful! I parked way away from the dumpsters, up on the road. Nobody likes a smelly police car. I took a deep breath and hustled in... I found the skunk right where the host said it would be, stuck fast in that little drain pipe. I surveyed the situation then tactically fled back to my truck to breathe. You see the rookie in me right away, huh?

Now, here's where it gets weird, but let me remind you that there was not a soul out there for miles around. I pray. I didn't want my uniform to smell like skunk right? I had my whole shift to work still and another twelve the next day. I was planning on milking that one shirt and not ironing, by ironing I mean spraying wrinkle release on the shirt before throwing it in the dryer for five minutes, until my days off. I did what any sane person would do, I stripped down to my underwear and t-shirt.

I knew that I had to kill the skunk and get it out of that dumpster. I took another deep breath and charged into the breach. Like a straight lunatic right? Creeping around a campground in my underwear in broad daylight with a gun... Let me just say that a .45 is a big bullet. It did the trick. I retreated again and caught my breath. It was while I was catching my breath that I came up with the brilliant idea that I just needed to push the now deceased skunk back into the dumpster with a stick. Sounds reasonable right? I found a long stick and headed back in.

The problem became apparent right away. Every time I tried to push one part of the skunk in another would goosh out. I retreated and breathed. I found another stick and put my gun in the truck with my clothes. I went back in. With two sticks it was even worse. Imagine trying to push spaghetti into a soda can using two pool cues. I retreated and breathed.

I realized there was only one thing to do. I took my lunch out of the Wal-Mart bag it was in and went back one last time, determined to end this thing once and for all! This time I threw caution to the wind. I put my hand in the bag and then used the bag to grab what was left of that spaghetti skunk and yank it out of the pipe. I tied the bag closed tight and put it in the furthest corner of the bed of my truck right by the tail gate. None of it helped at all. I still stunk like I had been sprayed all over. My uniform stunk, my truck stunk, even my lunch stunk after that. It was retarded.

So, I got rid of the skunk. Now, I can't even remember how. I went home and showered and put on a clean uniform. I went to the office and typed up essentially this story as I just told it. You have to fill out a report any time you fire your weapon on duty... My sergeant sat down and reviewed my report when I was done. She had a good laugh at it and then told me to delete it and write a real report.

So, there you have it. I bet you never saw that on Cops...