Compliance through pain

Compliance through infliction of Pain At the store where I work sheriffs deputies regularly stop in to get free drinks and such. It's no big secret that I do not like cops on general principal. I don't like the way they swagger around like they own the world and everything in it, including you. I hate the way their deadly weapons squeak and jingle when they swagger. Everything about them just sets my teeth on edge and gives me instant piss off. When I see one I go into instant activist mode. I can't help it.  I'm civil to them because I have to be. If you work with the public then you have to attempt to be civil to everyone. Sometimes that is difficult, at best. What happened at the store the other night merely reinforces my theory that 99% of cops are ignorant, power-tripping, high school diploma holding at best, assholes who ain't shit without that badge and gun. I've met a few good ones but not enough to make me think there is any sort of reasonable balance between good and bad among the ranks. My side of the store, the grill side, closes at 7pm on Sunday, 8 pm Mon- Thurs and 9 pm on Fri and Sat. We start breaking down thirty minutes before closing time and shut the grill down. Anything that is left is all moved to one steamer and we serve from that if someone comes in and wants a hamburger or a hotdog. What is leftover goes home with employees, if we want it, or into a bag for the guy who comes by to get it for his dog.  Well, the other night two deputies came in at closing time. I was getting ready to take out the trash and mop and had already put the remaining food into the doggie bag. One deputy got what he wanted from the store side. The other one came halfway over to my counter, not at the register where a normal person places and order, and announced that the wanted a hamburger. I said I was sorry but he was too late because the grill closed thirty minutes ago.  He looks at me, smiles and very casually his hand moves down to his gun belt, unsnaps a holster and he pulls out his fucking taser and points it in my general direction.  I looked him dead in the eye and said, "I wish you fucking would."  He responded, "Oh, so it's been a day like that?" I replied, "No, my day was fine til you walked in. I can dig you a hamburger out of the doggie slop bag if you want one that bad."  Instead of responding he puts his potentially lethal toy away and heads back to the other side of the store. I was sorely tempted to point him in the direction of the donut aisle, but refrained. He'd already proven himself, unprofessional and most assuredly unstable and, while the makers of the Taser and the cops who love to use them for the least provocation, would swear before the very throne of God that they are non-lethal, last time I checked there were over 500 deaths in the US directly attributed to their use.  My ticker is a little funny and I just didn't feel like dying that night over a fucking hamburger. You know, you sort of expect that kind of idiotic behavior from street punks and robbers. Criminals. But more and more it's the cops acting like thugs. Every day it gets harder to tell the difference between the two groups. The only difference that's clear is that one group of thugs has government sanction and government power backing it up and the other does not.  I guess what this particular punk mother fucker with a badge and a gun did passes for cop humor. But I'm not a cop and I didn't find it a bit funny. So, here's a bit of advice to cops who might read this, something they should have learned at their mothers knee and had reinforced in cop school; Don't pull it out unless you intend to use it. Tasers aren't toys any more than guns are toys. They are weapons. They can and do kill.  Also, electrocuting me will not make me make you a hamburger. Why, it's even less effective than saying, "Make me a sammige, bitch."   And you should never, ever, piss off the cook. That night the taser happy cop decided on a box of chicken bites that had been under the lamp for a stretch. I hope they gave him salmonella