Stepping into a parallel universe

I had my latest “humility sandwich” handed to me today.

After work, I hustled over to the police supply store. As I waited for them to look at my flashlight, I perused the store. It was like entering a parallel universe!

About 50 different handguns at the counter…

fully automatic weapons behind it…

displays of various knives, batons…

a complete shoe store with row after row of different styles of black or tan boots…

gloves for the hands with different “slash ratings”, etc, etc.

It made me recognize the “world” that policeman inhabit is a violent one. I guess that should be obvious with all of the reality cop shows on TV. However, seeing it from this perspective changed it for me.

Then I thought that this was just someone’s job! When they put on all of their gear, they are the cop that is fighting the bad guys to preserve law and order in our society. When they take it off, they are just like me…guys with wives and kids! Wow!

I reached into my pocket just to make sure that my “man” card was still there…

“Still there! Whew!…There must be different grades of cards…They must have a higher grade card than I am authorized to carry!”

After 15 minutes, the guy returned with my flashlight…

“The bulb is bad.”

“But…but…but…”

“I put a new bulb in and it works just fine.”

I could have fixed that! Duh!!!

I thanked him, apologized for taking his time, bought two bulbs and got out of there before he asked me to turn in my “regular Joe” card!

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