Friends,
I’ve been lying awake all night in spite of what was a very tiring (and very good) Thursday yesterday. I was gonna wait out the whole night and get up with the sun, but at 4am you just have to say fuck it, time to get up! Lying in bed awake all night is one of those things that has been pretty common for me lately but I don’t react to insomnia with the same stress that I used to react to it with in the past. This is primarily because I don’t have any pressing engagements that I have to be well-rested or up early for (shout-out to all my under-employed mafuccas with nothing to wake up for in the am lol).
Anyhow, I want to speak briefly about something that has been going through my head these last few hours as I stared up at my ceiling. You see, the past two days I have had two people threaten to call the cops on me. The first one was on Wednesday and it was this chick who always seems to be wandering in my apartment hallway, drifting between the apartments of two of my neighbours whom I suspect whom I am very certain are drug addicts. So right there I am convinced this girl is up to no good. But she doesn’t cause any problems so I kind of just look at her with impotent disdain. That is until two days ago when she wore out her welcome among my building’s residents but didn’t want to leave the building. She kept hammering on my neighbour, Carol’s door and I could hear Carol telling her to go away.
At this point enough was enough; whatever chemical adventures Carol may or may not be into, she is a sweet lady and she has always been nice to me. So I went into the hallway and the conversation I had with the girl had me asking her if she even lived in the building and if she could please stop knocking cause obviously Carol didn’t want her around and she was causing a disturbance. This chick didn’t seem very bright to me and this was confirmed when she accused me of harassing her and said she would call the cops if I didn’t stop.
I thought this was rich and volunteered to call the cops for her. I think this threw her for a loop because she seemed positively relieved when Carol relented and let her in.
One important thing to note is that I handled this situation well; I didn’t antagonize her and I remained calm.
Fast forward to the next day (yesterday).
The day started off grey and overcast so when it got sunny and clear in the mid-afternoon I was all about getting to the park, getting my tan on , doing some yoga, and working on a monologue for an upcoming audition. Now for the record, I bike wherever the fuck I want, and rather than let broad sweeping by-laws prohibiting sidewalk-biking define the parameters of where I cycle, I let common sense prevail and try to avoid the sidewalk if its crowded.
Bearing that in mind I was biking on the road and I crossed onto the sidewalk at a driveway 20 feet before the beginning of the park so as to avoid hopping the curb. Now some crossing-guard who I had biked past saw me do this and yelled some shit. I stopped and took out my earphones and he told me I had to get off the sidewalk to which I responded, “No, I don’t,” to which he responded, “Then you’ll get a fine!” to which I yelled back, “I won’t pay it,” as I biked away and into the park.
I settled somewhere in the middle of the park, unfurled my mat and wouldn’t you know it, when he saw that I had stopped, he tentatively thought it over a sec and made his way over to give me grief.
I’d like to tell you about it, but I happened to have my camera running (Please make sure you read the video description).
I think I ‘clonkered his bonkers’
So yeah, I moved up from harassment to blackmail apparently and unlike the chick from the day before, this guy actually made good on his threat to call the cops.
The cop was actually cool about it and he kind of seemed embarrassed to be there, inferring that decorum dictated he follow up on a complaint made by a fellow municipal worker in uniform. I was sympathetic to the position he was in and I had since calmed down (notice how gassed I was in that video, especially at the beginning). I explained that regardless of whether I thought that guy was out of line I should not have escalated it like I did. The cop seemed to appreciate my earnestness; I can only imagine he has dealt with countless fucktards all too willing to take a trifling matter like this to the supreme court. I told the cop I would go find the old man and apologize for letting the situation escalate (though not for biking on the sidewalk) but I never got the chance because he finished his shift before I finished frolicking in the park.
Now I’ve been in this lamentable position before: rewind to October 2012 and I entered Toys R’ Us looking for a Batman mask to complete my Bane costume,
only to be stopped and told that I had to surrender my knapsack => I just realized that I detailed this encounter in an earlier post so I won’t rewrite it. But the end result was the same as my encounter with Johnny Crossing-Guard: I was not in the wrong but I let my emotions get the best of me and I got suckered into a conflict. As someone who sees a lot of civil disobedience in my future, I can’t afford to be so careless.
I take ‘violence’ to mean even violent language and causing hurt feelings
When I mulled over this post in my preceding hours of insomnia, I had crafted the title to encapsulate a certain idea of how futile threats of calling the cops were (Threatening to call the cops is an ultimatum; a Hail Mary thrown by people with no power when they are in way over their heads. Anyone who has a legit reason to call 5-0 simply calls 5-0). However, now that this post is written I’m not really sure what it’s about. Hmmm, let’s just say that the moral of the story is that I’m a badass who is above the law and I’m looking to go 3 for 3 today and hopefully get accused of something more serious than harassment or blackmail.
For serious though, be polite and respectful to everyone you meet even if they are being cunty. I fact, if they are being cunty they probably need politeness and courtesy even more.
Best,
-Andre Guantanamo
P.S. I feel like I may have left the wrong impression with my contrasting attitudes toward the crossing-guard and the cop. It’s not like I have less respect for crossing-guards; they perform a valuable service (within the context of our obsolete infrastructure and modes of transportation). I was heated when the crossing-guard spoke with me and I had chilled out when the cop approached me. Pus, the cop approached me respectfully and wasn’t barking orders and threats.
Most importantly, he was acting in the capacity of a peace officer, trying to keep John Q. Public from killing each other and whatnot. Had he started trying to give me tickets and enforcing statutes and regulations there probably would have been a different dynamic to our conversation. One hopes I would have behaved like an adult, not dishonouring myself, instead of like an idiot as I had a few minutes earlier.
Write-Errantry 