BLITHERING, BUMBLING, AND RAMBLING #7
EUROPEAN?
Ok, so here I am in Lyon, France, enjoying the tail end of our southern France river cruise. We are docked at the pier, having a drink in the lounge, the wife and I. It is a cool, cloudy, day in Lyon, and we are watching the foot traffic along the pier, commenting on the scenery, and those things distinctively French.
My wife all of a sudden interjects the conversation with a news flash- “It looks like that guy’s peeing behind that gray thing!”
She points. Naturally, I look. Nobody there, but, there is a gray plastic something-or-other next to what looks like a red and white version of a port-a-potty.
Figuring my lovely bride had made a mistake on distance/location I comment that the port-a -potty would be the appropriate place, since, you know, that’s what it’s there for. Noooo, she insists, the guy she saw was behind the adjacent gray thing, and whatever he was doing behind it, his hands seemed to be focused due south of his belt buckle. (Sacre Bleu! Right?)
Wondering a bit about what the grey thing is, my wife blurts out, Oh, Gawwdd, there’s another one!” I look quick enough to see that there is indeed a man standing behind the gray plastic thing, visible only from the shoulders up. Hmmmmm .
I like to think people don’t, shall we say, raise their flag when it isn’t flag day. But, as I said earlier, we had been discussing things distinctly French. Some kinda flag day going on here.
I chuckled, and tee-hee-hee’d as my wife described the nervous, participant in the “grey hideout” who she said spent little time there and then fled at a brisk pace.
I decided there must be an explanation. I ventured out, as cautiously as a guy on the bomb squad does when somebody says “hey we don’t know what that is, go check it out…..”
I got close enough to read the labels on the port- a -potty and the grey thing. Both were labeled SEBACH . This is, as they say, what the FBI calls a clue.
With Sherlock Holmes-like investigative skills I googled it and found that SEBACH is a manufacturer of—— port -a -potties! Well, sure, but why, pray tell is there a doorless/ wall-less/don’t- be -shy version parked next to a traditional outhouse brand?
It turns out SEBACH has designed the PBlock (naw, not making this up) which is only about 5 feet tall and has three openings for urinal deposit while standing, and yeah, looking at your co-depositors on your right and left. Same size (actually less) as the standard port a potty,but triple the occupancy availability.
So what do you call 3 guys in a SEBACH PBlock? Right!!! EuropEan! And you probably thought things like that only happen in Rio Linda.
10 POUNDS IN A 5 POUND BAG
A long-ago -type memory came back to me the other day . I was thinking back to an incident in 1979 (yeah, disco was king, all the Beatles were still alive, and the first snowboard is invented) when I was working as a cop in Wheatland.
This particular day, I had a reserve officer with me, which I really appreciated, because the nearest backup car to me was from the Sheriff’s office, which usually took about 10 minutes. Uh huh, kinda on your own out there. I made a traffic stop on a very large Cadillac, and the adventure begins……..
As I walked up to the driver’s door, and spoke to the guy, I couldn’t help but notice that the he was barely able to fit behind the steering wheel because his enormous size extended his shoulder into the door frame, his belly about a quarter inch from steering wheel, and his hair brushing the roof. If the Incredible Hulk had a big brother, this was it. He was, as they say in Texas, a BIG old boy.
But no problem, well, yet. He was polite, extremely apologetic. In fact, there are very few people I can remember over the years who were as pleasant as he was. His driver’s license had expired, like two years earlier. His registration had expired a year before that. Uh oooooohhhhh.
As I check him for warrants that creepy feeling you get on the back of your neck was making my hair stand up. I told my reserve officer that the guy was a Gargantuan, and we didn’t have enough firepower to win if things started to go south. Holy crap, he said. Then, it got more intense. The guy had a warrant, for a violent assault. Holy crap, again.
I told the reserve to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. His eyes bulged a bit. I did my best to remain calm as I walked up to the car and asked the guy to step out . He, again, was apologetic, understanding that he shouldn’t be driving and wanted me to know how sorry he was for the inconvenience he had caused me. He knew what was coming. I told him he was under arrest and I braced for impact. (And, of course, prayed for speedy recovery in the ER).
And then a surprise- he assumed a cuffing position, face down on the trunk of the car, off balance. Me and the reserve officer handcuffed him as fast as we could, thinking nobody who could smite us with one hand, blindfolded, standing on one leg, would submit that easily. We nervously noted that we only got to the first click on the handcuffs, which , gratefully, we considered a success. The massive ham hocks he had as wrists, would probably have snapped the cuffs if he had sneezed. For about twenty seconds, we sighed with relief and thought the worst was over.
The guy told me he had no intention of resisting or being difficult in any way. I led him over to the door of the patrol car . AAAannnnnnnddddd……………
Huh. Trying to get this guy into the back seat of the old dodge patrol car was like trying to get a hard boiled egg into a Coca Cola bottle without breaking the shell. I mean, we pushed, squeezed, nudged, and repositioned him for five minutes as girth met steel cage barrier, with no success. I admired his patience, as he sometimes squealed, moaned, and at one point, begged, for us to try again a different way. My reserve and and I finally formed a plan, by way of the big guy’s suggestion. The plan was that we lean him over sideways, one pulling his upper torso, from the opposite doorway, while the other pushed the lower torso from from the open doorway.
The big guy agreed, sucking up gut, giving us about 1/64th inch of clearance as we manipulated him in, he pushing in with his legs to get to the goal. We congratulated each other as we finally headed toward the jail. He thanked me for my patience. I can only imagine what passing motorists thought as they watched us fit the unfitable into the back seat. (‘’Honey, I saw the darnedest thing in Wheatland today……”)
As we transported him to jail, he talked all the way in. He was a bouncer at a bar, and knew a lot of cops, who, he said, were his friends. He said he appreciated the courtesy, and wanted to not be a burden. As we arrived at the jail we requested assistance in getting the prisoner out. The jailers later told me, when they saw on the video camera the size of the guy we were trying to get out of the car, that they shouted to each other to hurry up, because Wheatland PD was bringing in “a giant something”.
As he was taken into booking, two of the jailers recognized him and started talking to him. It was like a reunion of old buddies, they laughed, talked about the times they’d seen each other at various brawls around the county. The mood was friendly and light. As he was being booked, I did something I had never done before. I thanked the guy for being civil and decent and respectful during the whole incident. He asked if it was okay to shake hands and part ways with no hard feelings. I did. I remember it as being like a child’s hand being engulfed by a catcher’s mitt.
The next day when I arrived for work, Charlie, the guy I was relieving, said “Hey! I heard you arrested the Jolly Green Giant. Everybody wants to know how the heck you got that elephant in the car, and more importantly, did the car survive?”
It’s something I thought about when my wife said we’re never gonna be able to get all the stuff we need to pack in our suitcase as we were preparing for our trip to France. I’m sure there was a little gleam in my eye as I replied, “ohhhh, I think we can”.
THE FRENCH CONNECTION
OK, back to France. While in Paris, my wife and I, along with our friends Marta and Robert, wandered over to a grocery store to pickup something to go with the French wine we had just purchased. I waited outside, since I was already holding a couple bags of purchases, as they entered the store. As I was standing outside, a pickup truck pulled up next to a car I was standing next to at the curb, and the the driver got out,leaving his truck parked in the street.
The truck was still occupied by a female in the passenger side. The truck was blocking the car I was standing next to, and a van parked behind it. The driver and passenger of the truck were sumo wrestler size, and had the hard stare look of people who don’t want to be argued with. I figured nobody was going to dispute their parking choice. I was wrong.
After several minutes two guys, (very large guys, both wearing workers overalls, and looking like they had had a long, hard day) came out and got into the blocked van. Seeing they were blocked and spotting the female, they honked the horn. The female passenger in the truck responded by waving them off and saying something that just sounded like a grunt. Here we go.
The driver of the van rolled down his window. He shouted out something and waved his arm at the truck. Based on the tone and gesture, and unable to translate any French words other than please, thank you, do you speak English, etc, I was reasonably sure he had not made a polite request for her to ever-so-kindly allow him to move forward. She responded with a snarl of French and pointed toward the store. I assumed, ok foolishly, that she had said something about the sumo wrestler guy in the store, and that they would move shortly. Uh, sure.
The passenger got out of the van. He had the steely-eyed glare of a hitman in a mob movie, and the charmed expression of an NFL linebacker who doubled his steroids that morning. I began to feel uncomfortable, because he was staring at me as he slammed the door. Ahhhhh, Sacre Bleu! Yes, again ! It took a second for me to come to the conclusion that, when the sumo -wrestler-passenger pointed to the store, her finger pointed in the direction of the innocent American bystander holding his bags of purchases thinking his wife and friends would pop out of the store soon (Yeah, me!- AAAAAAHHHHHH!)
I quickly tried to think of what French words meant, “wait a minute buddy” but the only ones that came to mind were how to order red wine and say excuse me. Thinking quickly (maybe panicking, yes) I blurted out “wait a minute buddy” in a hoarse whisper and started to back up towards the store. He stopped. Wow, thought I, maybe the scared English mumbling of an old man with grocery bags was enough to halt him in his tracks. Hardly.
Coming up behind me, it turned out, was sumo-wrestler-pickup-driver guy, and, like earlier, his facial expression was a long way from chipper. Words were exchanged as he walked towards the truck. It was all French, and again, the tone and volume ruled out any thought that anybody was delighted to be here. Then gestures were exchanged (finally, something I could easily translate). It seemed like a good time for me to beat feet back into the store.
Both parties burned rubber down the street and left. 2 seconds later Marta came out of the store. I explained how she just missed the parking war confrontation, and made a mental note to learn the local language of the next foreign country I visit. Not the entire language, just the words “it wasn’t me, it was him!”