Back when I was in my late teens/early twenties, I would be considered what you would now think of as a "thug" if such a term could ever apply to a white female. You and I, we had a lot of run-ins with each other, yet I miraculously managed to survive and make it to my thirties.
Thank you.
I hadn't put a lot of thought into that, honestly. I mean, most of us expect to make it into our thirties, amirite?
But I now see that, given my history, it's a pretty remarkable achievement, isn't it? And I have you to thank for sparing my life.
First, there was that time that I was pulled over for a DUI when I was nineteen. Man, I was an idiot! Remember that? There were six of you and one of me, and even though I wasn't resisting anything, one of the officers got a bit rough with me so I jerked my arm out of his hand and asked him to NOT touch me. That was an awful, awful thing to do.
I am not sure, looking back on it, how I'm still alive because apparently, jerking one's arm away is grounds for an immediate penalty of death.
Thank you for having mercy on me.
Then there was the time many years earlier when my friends and I had sneaked out of the house and our parents called us in as runaways. It was 2 am in the morning and a cop pulled up and shone his spotlight on us. We ran as far and as fast as we could, but never got shot, even when the cop car was within five feet of us.
Thank you for not killing me.
Oh, geez, then there was the time I had to call 911 because my girlfriend was getting violent and attempting suicide! I am amazed that I survived that one, because while the EMT's were tending to her and the cops were questioning me, one of them eating sunflower seeds and spitting the shells out at my feet. I asked him to please quit being such a dick and he rolled his eyes and walked away. Didn't even grab for his gun!
That was really kind of him. Thank you.
Oh, and then my favorite story was the time I was 16 or 17 and we got the first big snow of the season. My two friends and I were drunk (!) and we went outside to have a snowball fight. There was a car accident about a block away and one of the snowballs that I threw hit an officer right in the back of the head.
He was clearly annoyed but simply asked us to take our snowball fight further down the street.
That's downright saintly.
Then there was that time I called you because I had found my girlfriend's stolen bike on the city bus. Talk about luck! I even had a warrant out for my arrest at the time but I didn't even think about it when I realized I could get that bike back.
You didn't even ask any questions about me, really, other than to praise me for my quick thinking when I called you with the police report number and everything else. One of you even gave me a ride home with the bike in the trunk and praised me the whole way home. LOL- he even gave me tips on how to make it clear that I was in the car for a good reason, just in case anyone saw me back there.
I could go on and on, really. Of all the times I've had to face the police (and there have been plenty), I've almost always been treated like shit and I've often had an attitude.
Yet I'm still alive.
Why is that, I wonder?
I have a record, I'm a smart ass, I detest authority and yet.... I'm alive.
Why I have I been so lucky when so many others have been-
Oh, wait....
UPDATE 6:51 PM PT:
Agreed on all counts.
UPDATE#2
7:17 PM PT: UPDATE