I made it 42 years without ever stepping into a police station. And let me tell you, there are many who just read that and are searching through their mental rolodexes to disprove me. Now, there was an ill-fated night at 16 when I spent the better half of an evening in the back of a state trooper car for underage drinking, which I wasn’t even participating in that night—not because I was a Milk & Cookie, but because they weren’t serving anything I liked at that particular high school party… off some back road in my small, northern New York town. Ahh, childhood.
Where was I…
Tuesday, I took the afternoon off from work and drove the 90 minutes to the Lakeland Police Department to follow up on the asshole who stole my identity, created a debit card with my information on it and spent $165 of my money at a Lakeland Walmart. Thank the big guy upstairs for the red flag because the bank immediately called me and canceled that card, right as the scum-sucking, shit-for-brains attempted to spend another $157 on that card at the same store.
I have to admit I was a little excited to see the inside of a police department and catch the action as it unfolded. But there wasn’t a cell in sight: no cage; no uniform dipping his donut into a cheap cup of joe; no prostitute passed out on a cot; no drunk and disorderly prisoner teaching me new curse words while yelling that he needed to make a call; and no stench of cheap, beer-soaked stale pee. Nothing. Just a massive, beautiful entryway with a receptionist. It looked like a medical office. I took the day off for this?
From all of the TV cop shows I’ve seen, I was not expecting any of this―nothing was as it’s portrayed in Hollywood. Weird, I know.
Anyhoo…
Earlier that day I had emailed the affidavit paperwork to the fraud department at my bank and by the time I got home from Lakeland, the money was already put back into my account. You know – on Monday morning when I went to the bank to get the paperwork, I told them that I had filed a police report and they seemed surprised; apparently not many people do it. I get that the bank is going to give you your money back, but I can’t understand why somebody would not file a police report. I want these people caught: they stole my identity and my money. I had to take a day off from work. I had to drive 90 minutes each way and hang out in the police department for quite a long time while everything was being processed. Am I the only one with so much time to waste? Speaking of which, it’s CSI time.