Okay, I admit it. My secret vice is watching reality Cop Shows. I’m not sure why. It’s not quality entertainment by any means. Or pretty. Or quiet. Or most anything one might offer as a reason to watch these programs. Besides the improbable explanation that I was a police person in another life, the only logical reason I can give for sitting hours watching these shows is ‘I watch these shows because I am a writer.’
Most Cop Shows illuminate a life-style I don’t understand and don’t believe I will ever understand. How can people live like that? Drunk all the time. Drugs. Fighting. Blood. Just the general sense life is shit and they are moving towards destroying their lives as best and as quickly as possible. Last night I watched the show Under Arrest. The ‘criminals’ screamed at the cops for the entire show. I don’t mean raised voices, I mean screaming at the top of their lungs, calling them all sorts of names, sure the cops were out to get them or just about anything rude, obscene or stupid that could come out of a human mouth.
These shows boggle me. People run and fight and struggle and lie as if it is the most normal behavior in the world. If the Police told me to lie down (which had never happened to me as one speeding ticket doesn’t account for pulling me out of the car at gunpoint – thank goodness ), I would be on the ground, not doing anything to make the Officers mad. I would be ‘Yes Siring ‘or ‘Yes Ma’aming’ every request or order. I might be crying, heck I would be crying, but that’s a far as I would go.
Back to that one speeding ticket in my life. I surprised the cop because all I said was, “No, I didn’t know how fast I was going, I was just hurrying to get the ice cream in the back home as soon as possible.” I was polite. I didn’t argue. Hopefully, if nothing else, I gave him a nice break from arguing and cursing.
So, yes, those shows fascinate me. They are a peek into a life that I have never have, and hopefully never will, experience in real life. So if you happen to see me cuffed by the road, I hope you’ll know I was the politest arrestee ever. And it probably isn’t really me, rather one of the multitude of characters in my universe, born from watching my secret vice way to often for my own good.
Photo from IMDb website.
A Writer's Life 
Did your ice cream melt ? 😉
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It got soft, but didn’t melt all the way, thank goodness.
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😁😜🍧🍦
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We share a ‘vice’ in common then. My particular ‘poison’ is Cops and “Jail”. Like you, I’m amazed that the people who are filmed seem to be almost comfortable with that kind of trauma/drama, will tell the most outrageous lies, flee from the cops (which I find incredibly stupid..why compound your problem by trying to run away. They have dogs and helicopters and for all I know heat seeking radar now and they WILL FIND YOU). When they are caught, some of them still try to fight and I’ve come to understand why (not condoning it mind you) some cops are called ‘brutal’. I’d punch somebody in the face or gut or ear who punched me first after all. Who spit or shit on or bit me. I don’t know how they hold their tempers with the abuse that they get piled on them. But that’s why they are cops and I’m not. I have a sibling who is a cop, and given our mutual upbringing it never ceases to amaze me that he’s done so well and held the job for so long. His temper is much worse than mine, but after 30 odd years doing that job, I notice that he doesn’t get physical these days, but an icy coldness enters his demeanor and you feel frozen by his stare. I wouldn’t want him after me I can say. And I wonder if this kind of ‘vice’ isn’t a way for us to be a sort of armchair actor in the drama..whether on the side of the good guys or the bad ones.
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Glad I’m not the only one. I have great respect for cops, all the crap they have to deal with on a daily basis. No way would I want to be a cop, at least at this time. Thanks for your thoughts.
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You’ve just inspired my next post (though I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to write it). I think we are (for the most part) whatever we are filled with.
Last year, I was driving my husband’s car in a nearby small city. My husband was in the passenger seat, and a male friend of his was in the back. Not speeding and nothing odd, but a sheriff dropped in behind me and his light came on immediately. I signaled and pulled over onto a dirt median, and everyone made sure their hands were visible while the officer walked cautiously up alongside the car.
I handed the officer my ID while he gave a kind of a lame story about it being difficult to see the registration tag on the plate because it was a little dirty, but that it had checked out okay. In a Japanese way, I apologized for the inconvenience, and he in returned thanked me for stopping safely before heading back to his car.
We all realized that the police officer had just made judgment call based on the visuals of the circumstance (“discriminated” something as being out of the ordinary), and was simply making sure that I was okay. Frankly, I appreciated it. But I also realize that if I had been raised with a different set of attitudes, I might not only have viewed the situation differently, but might also have reacted differently. And that could have changed the entire dynamic, potentially confirming a bias as well. We see things in the ways that we are taught to see them, and then we notice whatever comes with the expectation… including in ourselves.
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That is true. We do see what we expect, what we are taught to see. I find it sad that children grow up in this environment. No wonder we have so many kids who have no respect for anybody but themselves. I wish I knew how to stop the cycle of violence, but I don’t know anything which would break the cycle.
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