Bats Attack!!!!

Well, as the single digit temps descended over Iowa, the bat problem is striking again. And again, it is the terrorists' favorite target, the Hoyt Sherman Place. This old mansion seems to be a clearinghouse of nooks and crannies for bats to hide out. And every now and then, they take a few flights in front of the motion detectors, which means I get called to go see what the hell is going on. As usual, I call up my supervisor and make him go there with me. The place is too creepy at night to not have someone there to hold your hand.

This time, we get there, I turn off the alarm system, and no sooner than I hit the lights in the lobby area, the winged terrorist comes flying at us, unleashing the possibility of a rabies-laden attack upon the Mookist general, and his compadre. It's time to go to work eliminating these terrorist sumbitches. Last night,, we were armed with the most primitive of weaponry, the dreaded orange cones (think traffic cones). We finally convinced this monstrous and EFFING HUGE bat to roost in his normal terrorist-trained upside down position at the top of a door across the room. I wheeled around to the left with my cone and my GI Joe-like ninja skills avoiding the bats detection, while my supervisor Casey held the middle ground to the entry vestibule in check. A quick toss, and BAT DOWN, BAT DOWN!!! We placed the cone over him, and I moved to go write up the alarm response sheet at a nearby desk. The bat was sliding underneath the cone towards the door he had previously hung from, trying to escape underneath the locked door that I did not possess a key for. WE stopped him as he was 3/4 of the way through in his backstroke maneuver to freedom. The next step was to fully retrieve the little rat faced bastard from underneath the door. Ever cautious of possible rabies infections from bites or scratches, we searched for something to get a grip on the terrorist and bring him back into the light and under our guard. (The next moment gets a bit gruesome, so weak stomached people stop reading here, and go to your happy place.)

Casey did NOT hand me his pocketknife, and I did NOT use it to stab the winged terrorist in a pinning hold to drag him out. Right after we did NOT do those things, I hear Casey yell out some unsavory words, and mentioned something about another bat. Apparently our NOT piercing the first terrorists skin did NOT release pheromones and a rescue signal to his terrorist partner, who then began to dive bomb us all over the lobby. We placed a nicely weighted bucket over Bat #1, grabbed our cones, and proceeded to go after the 2nd insurgent. After a few strafing runs, the 2nd bat went up the stairwell to the main theater entry hall, strafed us a couple more times, then went up another level, where we lost him in the dark.

We were both disappointed in that result. 1- We enjoy the bat calls, as they are one of the most exciting, and scary moments on the job. 2- We don't necessarily want to be called back if another bat sets off the alarm system, which takes time away from our other duties. And 3- Losing a live terrorist only serves to degradate our reputation as elite rentacops turned combat commandos.

Surely we will be back again, as these winged marauders will start trouble again, trying to dissuade us of our nightly missions, and cause us to give up and go home, allowing the terrorists to claim victory over rentacops and more notably, the Mookist forces. WE will never EVER give in to these terrorists if it takes our entire lifetime to rid our alarm response accounts of these rabies-harboring little (and sometimes not so little) rat-faced bastards. WE intend to NOT kill them all, because killing them would be considered illegal, depending on the species anyways, and I'm no bat-ologist (yes this is a technical term meaning studier of bats), so I can't tell which ones are fair game or not. All I'm saying is if they just happen to have sudden cardiac arrest at the exact moment they tangle with us, well, that's either God or Darwin speaking.

The Blessed Curse of Being Unknown

For most of my life I have had a dual mentality. I love to be complimented, and at the exact same time I hate it. I also like being recognized, while also hating that simultaneously as well. Well last night, I hear from my supervisor just how recognized I'm not.

(Now, for full disclosure here, I don't really care in the end. I just don't mind bitching about overall meaningless shit that happens in my life. If you haven't figured that out yet, or don't believe me, ask my wife. She'll confirm it.)

The other night, after coming out of a building downtown, my supervisor and I notice a confrontation taking place a block up between a hotel security guard from another company and a homeless guy. It starts out verbally, and the next thing we know punches are being thrown. I look at my supervisor and ask if he wants to join the party. So we immediately head that way, but after a quick exchange the homeless guy goes taking off around the corner away from us and the hotel. Directly across the street stands a group of cleaners who had to have watched the whole ordeal, but "none of them saw anything." Of course we made sure the security guard was alright, and stood by ready to be his witnesses. Des Moines' finest arrived pretty quickly, got a quick description and direction of travel and went off to find the homeless guy. They swung back around within a couple minutes and picked up the hotel guy to go identify the perp. Solid ID was made and the guy taken to jail. The cops came back with the security guard and took down information from my supervisor and myself. No big deal.

However last night, my supervisor tells me our office received an email from the hotel. They wanted to extend their thanks for our part in as they put it: taking care of one of our own. Apparently all of us rentacops have our own brotherhood that I wasn't aware of until reading this email. In the email it said, and I quote: Two of your officers (Casey & an unknown)were leaving the Hub Tower and noticed the situation getting a little hostile.

Now, I'm the one guy with a name tag pinned on my chest, the police took down my info including name and all that, and it was my suggestion to go get involved in the situation, and I'm an unknown. That's just great! The letter goes on to say: I just wanted to make sure these gentlemen were noted as taking an extra initiative... This speaks highly of yourself and your officers in the eyes of the [Hotel name redacted]

Well now. That's fantastic. My supervisor Casey, and whoever the hell they figure on placing in the Unknown's slot, now have special regard for "their" initiative in assisting a fellow security officer. Damn supervisors hogging all the spotlight while relegating his underling to status of "YOU, whatever your name is...go do this for me!" What a high horse self important bastard, he is! (Casey, I know you're reading this...I still love you! Stew put me up to this...right after I mentioned blogging the crap out of it!)

You know, as much as I may like and hate a compliment or recognition, a backward compliment has got to be, by far, the worst kind of compliment to receive. It's like there's a committee doling out awards.

"And we'd like to confer special recognition, for all his hard work and extra efforts to...NOBODY!" The music plays, the crowd claps, and some putz goes up there that no one has any idea who the hell the guy is. I mean really..what the hell?

A few years back, when I was relatively new on the patrol squad, I caught a guy breaking into a house. I first found a broken out window pane. I searched the house, and after finding nothing out of place or anyone on site, I had my supervisor at the time get hold of the information to get in contact with the residents. While waiting, some dip wad shows up, I confront him, he confronts the floor, and my handcuffs develop a close personal bond with the guys wrists while we wait on the cops to show up and haul the poor dumb bastard off to jail. As much as I'm not a people person nor care to remember many of them, I still remember that poor bastard's name, 5 years later.

Well we have a meeting the next morning for all the people who run my route. I'm sitting next to the sales/service guy in our office, who also happens to be a former sheriffs deputy. He tells me that I did a good job, although I got really lucky with that whole situation. He then tells me that if the guy had been a professional burglar he would've put me on flat on my ass. Yeah, thanks for the backhanded compliment, buddy!

I realize I'm not some universally recognized bad ass or anything, but I can handle my own, and within that meeting room, there were about 2 guys I had any worry of not being able to take physically..and our former sheriff deputy of a sales guy was not one of those two. Former cop or not, I could've run circles around him all day and he would've dropped dead from a heart attack before besting me.

And to top it all off, my good job at breaking up a B&E didn't get me any recognition like "employee of the month". Nope, that went to a guard who stood at a Wells Fargo Bank along Ingersoll directing customer cars out onto the road around the construction the property was undergoing during the daytime. So for that one I get a backhanded compliment, and then essentially a slap in the face. I was Rent-a-Cop two years in a row (2007-8), and now, I can't even be given a name other than "Unknown". Sad Days!

Of course, let me screw something up. Then they got my name all marked down, double confirmed. And not just my name, but my FULL name: first, middle and last, pillorying me for all to know: The Mook has seriously %$#&*! up, people, please take a note of this mistake that he, MOOK, made. They say no news is good news. So maybe no name is good name?

Maybe when I die, I'll be given a tombstone for "Unknown Rentacop", that is watched over 24/7 by only the finest of rentacops (or, as we call them in the security business, 'any old warm body we can schedule for that slot'). I'd prefer a Marine, like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, but I think that's shooting just a bit too high for a guy like me.

In the end, I suppose it is probably just another ploy by anti-Mookist forces. Conspiratorial bastards!