in shock
about 15 minutes ago i got stopped by yet another cop (second night in a row, third stop in a week), but… something different happened. BTW, this was, no shit, about 20 minutes after i left the police department from the different town where i was rousted last night, after filing a verbal complaint, getting the names of the rousters, and toting a written complaint form for entry later in the week (such a big man of action, filing complaint paper).
this guy, freak of the universe, did the usual “got any ID on ya” shtick, but as soon as i protested the reason for the stop (“suspicious”) and told him that sitting outside a paid wi-fi hotspot using my laptop is in no way suspicious, he said — get this — “do you have an ID i can write down? you don’t have to give it to me if you don’t want to; i’m saying we like to make…”
i immediately stopped him to make sure i’d heard him correctly. when he confirmed that i had exactly, i asked to shake his hand, then rolled down the window and did just that. thrilled! he stood by my door and we shot the shit for about 15 minutes, until he got an emergency call and sped off, lights flashing. without question the freakiest cop stop of my life. got his card and his supervisor’s name so i can send out an attaboy tomorrow — conditional, of course. i asked what he’d have done if i had my pistol on my passenger seat as i sometimes do, and he said he’d likely have pulled me out of the car at gunpoint and handcuffed me until he was sure… whatever. oh but he got an earful over that one. 
told him it makes as much sense for me to handcuff him and put him over the hood of his car, since he’s armed, no better than me, and neither of us knows the other. i think that was a new concept for him. har har.
in another first, a cop who’d pulled somebody over into the parking lot drove by after that stop, and the “no ID required” guy waved him on. must be the upcoming lunar eclipse. something is amiss with my world. if that were the way cop stops went routinely, they can knock on my window twice a day; i don’t give a fuck. they’re still violent thugs, oozing up stolen wealth, but at least that’s where the damage would end in my alternate universe of practical compromise and reduced systematic sociopathy.