LAST EDITED ON 01-19-09 AT 07:55 PM (EST)My name is Sergeant Joe Friday,
It was Wednesday July 6th, we were working the day watch out of the nuisance calls division of the LAPD.
My partner Frank Smith and I had been assigned to the Nuisance Squad (aka Noogies) because of a recent upsurge in calls from the Catzebo section of LA. A demented transient known by his hobo friends as “The Prof”, and also known for his drink of choice, Aqua Velva, and for his amorous obsession with opossums and used opossum underwear, had infiltrated the basement of a known distributor of illegal Upper Himalayan Toad skins, the Fooners. Because no eyewitnesses had been known to survive their “Couch Surfing” scam, we were all a’twitter with the possibility of bringing in these legendary tequila hoarders. The street had it that the Fooners were single handedly responsible for the Blue Agave scarcity which had driven the cost of a barrel of tequila up to $150 for the 100 proof stuff.
Well, Frank and I were both fond of our frozen Margaritas, so we responded. We formed a task force of two and devised a simple but diabolical plan to flush out the Fooners and silence the nuisance that was “The Prof”.
The plan was, as mentioned, simple. We would maintain our usual surveillance from the Dunkin Donut shop nearest the dead end cul-de-sac that was Cupracabra Lane, the lane where little hope enters, and less emerges, the street of no return, the avenue of real scary thingies including dancing Cupracabras and small mammal Catzeboes.
Frank and I had become nationally renown for the special donut shop surveillance techniques we developed. It was our specialty, and we worked hard on it. We even became part time instructors at the police academy. It was our hope that we could pass on our donut shop surveillance techniques to the cadets so that they wouldn't have to learn these lessons the hard way.
We were responsible for a record for which the department had received numerous awards and plaques. No Dunkin Donut Shop had never been stolen while we were on the job. Not one. Ever.
I checked out our usual unmarked Fairlane 500 and drove to the shop where, after reading the building blueprints and evaluating the angles we set up our 24/7 watch at the third table on the right (as you enter).
We knew it would take a long time to bring these miscreants to justice, and both Frank and I had had to let our plain grey suit pants out a few times. And, in fact, after a while our booth had to be reinforced with heavy wide-flanged I-Beams, but we were making a difference, dam it, the evil forces of Cupracabra Lane just had to be stopped.
From our table, in between bites, we could just see the Fooner’s front porch, and the hand lettered sign, “Couch Surfing Central”. Clever. Insane, but clever, only a truly demented genius would think to put a sign on their porch. Frank and I would have to be at our sharpest to catch these evil doers.
On this particular day, we watched as a demented apparition with a Groucho nose disguise slithered up the steps and rang the bell. We could just hear it yelling “We want in, my precious, we want in. No we don’t! Yes we do, Oh, my precious, we wants in”. The door was answered, and the squiggly one could be heard to beg in the most deplorable whine “Do you have a spare bottle of Aqua Velva? No? A bottle of Listerine?” I am a Prof with a misspent life, a waste, really, and all I want out of this world anymore is to stay soddenly drunk and sleep on couches. I saw your sign and I... (mumble mumble blah blah).
He disappeared through the grotty door, and after about an hour we received word that a call had been received from this residence. Someone was complaining of being locked up in a basement with glowing ladybugs that bit.
Frank mentioned that that seemed a little odd and what did I think?. I reminded him that unless we caught the Prof in the actual act of boinking a possum, (statute 401 of the LA Penis Code), or the Fooners of enticing a pervert, that we were powerless. I further reminded him that with the last couple dozen bear-claws, neither one of us could actually extricate ourselves from the booth, and that even though we might make something stick on the pervert bit, we were powerless to even stand up. So, maybe the better course would be to wait until that idiot could lead us to Mr. or Mrs. Big.
As fate would have it, the South California Al Borja winds hit the LA San Andrea’s fault line resulting in a 6.1 with us (those dam donuts) as the epicenter, and we found ourselves bounced out of the booth, out of the shop and propelled up onto the Fooners porch. This felt to us to be a little preposterous, but maybe it was fate asking us to do our jobs. So we knocked and tried to run away. Except that we couldn’t run anywhere, we could only wiggle our fat arms and legs a little, Oh well.
After a polite moment, the door swung open and from an impossible height, an emaciated skull face appeared and asked how many Squirrel Exercise Machines (SEM) s we wanted. (Obviously another scam on society, ooooh these guys were real baddies).
Taken aback, I blurted out “3” and Frank spat out “6”, then I said “I mean 6” and Frank stammered “I mean 3”. We had our Abbot and Costello routine down pat for just such occasions as this and were smoothly stuttering and stammering to beat the band. Then I showed the receipt for a gas bill to the skull, pretending that it was a search warrant, and he smiled (yeah, it wasn’t a smile, it was a hideous gash with yellow/black teeth) and welcomed me in, still under the illusion that we were there in answer to his advert.
The spiel, and I quote...
“We are sure your brief stay will be a happy and safe adventure.”
“Don‘t concern yourself with the Hazmat truck out front. Strange blue-green Ebola-type bugs jumped off the last couchsurfer, and the sterilization crew think they poisoned almost all of them. “
He’s gone, anyway. Left without even saying goodbye. “
“No, sorry, the Louis XVI” {ed. This was a such a sorry pretense, it was so obviously Louis XIV} “in the main room isn‘t for sleeping on. No, we don’t use the Ming vases for spittoons.”
(This just as Frank let go a long, brown sticky wad at the aforementioned vase...I pretended I didn’t see him do it, or hear it, or notice the part that missed, or the part that killed an unfortunate mouse bystander)
(Continuing, and omitting some...)
“We keep our cash in the upper left hand side drawer of the bedroom armoire.”
(leaving out some more..)
“Please leave your shoes outside. On second thought, please stay in your shoes.
We’ll bring out pie to start.”
We declined the pie, there was stuff still alive in it and I was feeling a donut about to hurl itself back toward the donut shop, so we just asked to visit the bedroom (see above) and the basement. There were noises coming out of the kitchen which sounded like a... oh say.... maybe a opossum boinking a cat... not that I know what that sounds like...but that would put it in the jurisdiction of someone (anyone) else and I didn’t want to disturb the evidence. I am meticulous like that so I put my hands over my ears and murmured lalalalalalalalala as we bypassed the kitchen.
After collecting the cash evidence from the bedroom and conscientiously putting it in an evidence bag and marking it “MINE”, I opened the door to the basement....and there slivered the Gollum aka the Prof, naked, but with smooth patches where anything interesting would be on anybody else. In days to follow we would discuss how he could possibly have been amorous with opossums, that would become a matter of speculation. Meanwhile, back in the basement, we saw that he had located a barrel from the Fooner Tequila hoard and was peaceably oblivious to anything else except the steady stream of flow coming out of the barrel. We asked him if he was the caller, or if he wished to file a complaint against the Fooners, He didn’t answer, so that was that.
I looked at Frank, he looked at me, and we came to a silent accord. We see nothing, everything seems to be in order, lets get the hell out of here. If someone wanted to bring down the Fooner Couchsurfing Scam Crime ring, or to apprehend the nuisance that was the Prof, they could just do it themselves. We waddled down to the Fairlane, drove to the station, and ended our shift.
Such are the Tales of Dragnet. Not to be confused with Tales of Drag which are produced on another network by the Gollum Prof himself.
Signing off. Joe Friday and Frank Smith.
Dum, Da Dum Dum.........Dummmmm.!!!
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