Coffee Chronicles (Not Your Average Baby Shower Edition)

Some of my readers may be familiar with being a patrol trainee at a relatively fast sheriff’s station working for the largest sheriff’s department in the world. But for those of you who may be a little less familiar; it’s long hours, lots of observation arrests, many hours of off-duty time studying the streets of the area that you are patrolling so that you can get there, wherever “there” is blindfolded, with your head down writing one of your numerous seemingly endless stream of reports.

And that's on day one.

While I was on patrol training, some almost 35 years ago, the Head Barista was not really interested in all that. That was all very tedious and boring to her and blah, blah, blah. All she wanted to know was when we were going to have some coffee.

One fine day, she told me she needed me to chauffeur her and the little baristas to a friend’s home for a baby shower. It was a long drive and she didn’t want to go all that way without me. I knew I had some studying that I could have been doing and that it was never, ever really over, but the party was about an hour and some minutes away and I didn’t want to worry about her and the kids out in some very unfamiliar territory and possibly getting lost.

As I mentioned it was quite a distance, so we packed up all the kids loaded up the soccer van, and set off for Ventura County as it was a family-type shower. The kids were excited, not so much for the drive, but because there was a swimming pool where we were going and more kids to meet.

The HB mentioned at some point on the drive, that her friend had invited us numerous times to come out before and visit and to bring the kids, but the timing always seemed to be off and her friend and her husband lived so far from our then South Central LA domicile.

As we were on our way, small talk between us spouses and driving games between the kids and us to keep them busy and interested commenced. I think we were probably getting close, maybe about 20 minutes from landing on the street when the conversation got around to how she met her friend and how excited she was because they hadn’t seen each other since they worked together at Sybil’s house.

“Oh. She’s a deputy too?” I asked.

“Oh yeah. I thought I told you that.”

“No, Hon, I don’t think you ever mentioned that.’

“Really? Oh. Her husband is a deputy too.”

“Oh wow. That’s cool. Just like us.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna love her. She is so bubbly and funny. I used to love working with her.”

“Oh, that’s great. So do you know her husband too?”

“No, just her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Bettina. I can’t remember her married name. I think it’s Younger or something like that”

It was at this point that a little uneasiness started to set in with Your Hero. “Uh, Sweetie? What’s her husband’s name?”

“I think it’s Tom or Tim, or something like that…”

“YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME, WOMAN!!”

Show of hands, who knows what the odds are of one spouse knowing the spouse of the man who holds the future of her spouse in the palm of his hand, and that man could squash that future like an itty-bitty, tiny, little knat (ambiguous, yes I know, trying to make a point here, stay with me). This man could then wash and dry his hands and go about his day without a second thought?

Apparently, not the million-to-one odds I had initially believed them to be, but I digress.

“What?” the HB asked in a sing-song voice acting all innocent-like.

“Is she married to Tim Youngern?”

“I dunno. Yeah, that could be it.”

Full-blown panic had set in now.

“Babe, your pal's husband is a TO at my station. I am a trainee at my station." I said all of this very slowly so that the words would sink in with her.

"I can not go to this party! He’s going to chop me up into tiny bite-size pieces and feed me to the alligators in the moat that he has protecting their home.” Of course, this is exactly how I pictured all the TO’s at my station lived; in large castles, with deep moats and alligators or large scary ogres living under their draw bridges.

Who am I kidding? They're the large scary ogres.

I was way past the point of no return. The kids had stopped playing amongst each other and were listening intently to our conversation. They had suddenly become very interested in seeing a real-life castle and there was a pool! If there were alligators, all the better. Plus, they had a pool. Kids have a one track mind in the summer months.

“You can’t turn around now, Dad.” They wanted to see the alligators.

Of course, looking at me in my rear-view mirror, was my baby girl, with the same doe-eyes that she's used to wrap me around her little finger. “Dammit.” I thought and kept driving toward Simi, in total silence, because I was scared.

Really scared.

But the HB was perplexed. “What’s the big deal?” She wondered aloud, not understanding my anxiety at all nor the pressure that I felt in my chest, which seemed to radiate down my left arm as I drove down what now appeared to me to be the Green Mile.

I came up with an idea that I thought would save me. I would drop them off and do what I did every day at work while the TO’s were eating; I would wait in the car, study my RD maps, and snack on trail mix & water, and pray I didn't have to use the restroom.

After we'd arrived and I sat in the car, watching the kids splash around in the pool from in front of the house at a safe distance, I wondered where my life had gone wrong.

How could the HB have led me into the lair of the beast?

At some point, after the HB arrived inside, she gave me up. She broke the cardinal rule of “what’s said in the car, stays in the car”. Yeah, contrary to popular belief, we coppers came up with that first, not Vegas. I learned on that very day, that the HB will NOT be my choice of accomplice when I rob a bank.

She somehow intimated to her hostess that her husband had driven with her to the Valley and that he was currently dealing with a minor conflict in the family minivan. Isn't it funny that their husbands had something in common? They both worked at the very same station, although one was a trainee and the other an FTO. She needn’t guess which was which.

The HB’s friend took pity upon me and gave her Training Officer husband an order: Go outside and retrieve me from the car.

Politely.

No doubt he was the boss of me at work, but at home — as a smart man, he knew when to follow the directions of the real Watch Commander.

He was very gracious and I was still incredibly uncomfortable. I did go inside but I found a nice, quiet corner to cower in and sipped from a cup o’ Joe.

Ya know what to do! Drink 'em if ya got 'em!

#coffeechronicles