I got a thing in the mail that says I have a package to pick up at the post office. Must be games or something, so I decided to walk into town and pick them up. It took about thirty minutes to walk, but it's only good for you so what the hell. I got to the bottom of the hill where the public library is and they have a cop car parked across two lanes of traffic and a cop turning people around at the intersection. I figured there was a car accident or something.
Two blocks later another cop stops me, again, his cruiser across the road. I can see the next intersection blocked off too. "You can't go down town" he says. "Why not? What's up?" I asked. "Dunno, there's something serious going down" he replies. I said OK and kept walking, figuring I'd just cut around the next corner and he wouldn't see me.
The next intersection the cop is one of those guys with the goatee/crew and "Don't point at me, sir" attitude with one hand on his taser just in case he has an excuse. I'm not dressed particularly like Carlton Banks so I figure he might have a problem with me.
He puts his hand out at me like they teach at security guard night school to assert authority. If it weren't the afternoon he'd probably be shinning his mag light in my face too. Anyways, he says to me "Sir, you can't go down town!" and I did my best impression of the Fresh Prince, saying I was going the other way or something. So then before he has time to razz me out he jumps in front of a car to cut it off from turning down the street and yells "STOP!". Who jumps in front of a moving car like that? Fuckin supercop here has a deathwish, or he wants to get paid double time to sit in court while some poor guy has to explain he wasn't expecting the guy to jump in the way and how he never plays GTA.
Anyways, I keep walking and turn in towards downtown at the next intersection. Now, I live in a small town but I'm not from around here though, I grew up in Vancouver. But they had the downtown core (all two blocks of it) locked up tight, like there was going to be a gang war or something. Except they don't have gangs here... just little kids who think they live in a ghetto. I figured somebody robbed a bank and is holding a hostage or something... but still I looked down the street and they had a firetruck parked across four lanes of traffic. What the hell was going on?... Of course everyone and their dog was out looking down the street because they have never seen anything 'exciting' before. The grin on some of those guys faces was so annoying. I wasn't interested in seeing a bomb go off or the police shoot anyone to death , I just wanted to go to the post office. My major concern was actually if the cops open up on someone and I catch a stray, a very real concern that doesn't get put on the news. Those other guys though... man it's disgusting how bored they must be with life.
So I'm still heading to the post office and the closer I get the more cops and stuff show up. There were people standing around just looking up the street and they weren't being evacuated or anything so I couldn't figure out how anything was so serious yet not serious enough to be serious.
I didn't hear gunshots so I figured there wasn't anything to really worry about yet, the town is built on a postage stamp so if shots were fired I would hear them. Still I head towards the post office. Finally I overhear someone say the word 'bomb'. Are you kidding me? These small town cops closed the whole fucking town because some kid phoned in a pipe bomb!? There were four 'serious' bomb threats on my school in grade 8! We were back in school by lunch! Get the fucking bomb dogs in from the airport and clear the place out already!
Of course the airport doesn't have bomb dogs... just drug dogs. Seriously. They have to fly dogs up from Vancouver.
Anyways I make it to the intersection near the post office and got stopped by the police. "What's going on?" "This street's closed". "Why, is there a bomb or something?" I asked. This is the part that really threw me off my rocker.
"There might be a bomb in the post office".
"No fucking shit Sherlock, there might be some drugs in there too, you know maybe some seeds and a bong or two. Why not close the border too?". IT'S A FREAKING APRIL FOOLS JOKE! Some little shit thought it would be funny if the cops went and tore open all the packages! Not only am I pissed that my package is in jeopardy, but that I had to walk in a goddamned zig zag around the cops for half the freaking town because there might be a bomb in the post office! What did the guy park a dump truck of C4 in the freaking place? THEY HAD A CAR BLOCKING OFF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY WAY THE HELL AWAY!
I went home and about 5 hours later phone the 7-11 downtown to ask if the streets are opened up yet. Nope. These small town cops are probably going to have downtown closed off for a week. I can't imagine the thousands and thousands of dollars lost by officially blocking off the only commercial section of the city and all traffic through it. Talk about overkill.
I dunno what I'm going to do, if I try to write an angry letter to a local member of legislature they'll probably just ignore me because the MLA's brother is a cop or his sister works in the post office or something. If my package got torn open because they wanted to check if it was a bomb I am going to be fucking furious. And I wouldn't put it past them.
