Cinderella Undercover

I am fond of cops.

Well, I am fond of cops that are not on the job to revel in power over the weaker. Even though I know that there are a lot of police people out there that have that attitude, I still see the majority of them as “The good guys”.

It helps that I am a sucker for uniforms, but I also just admire people that perpetually put themselves in harms way to maintain Law & Order (Insert “Doink, doink” sound).

I am a fan. Especially of the cop who caught me speeding while on my way to see the last “Star Wars” movie. He was totally obsessed with all things Star Wars. So, I took a chance and gave him “The Jedi Mind Wave” and said, “You will not give me a ticket”. Luckily, he laughed and I got a warning instead of silver bracelets and a ride to the slammer. He was great.

There have been a few times in my life that I have NOT been a fan of the boys in blue.

One of those times? Happened when I was I was 17 and I helped the local Police Department with an undercover drug sting.

I know, I know.

Many of you are going, “Her?! Involved in covert, super-secret ANYTHING????!!! Covert, super-secret anything that could involve illegal substances and forms of deadly weaponry?! WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING?”

At least that is what I think when I recollect the following events.

My best friend in high school had the worst taste in men you could possibly imagine. She helped tutor ESL students at her high school. Most of the ESL students were really good kids, but she managed to date the two SLIME BALLS of the universe. They also had the worst names known to mankind: “Elmer” and “Fernando”. Elmer is just evil. So evil that I do not want to write about him.

Today we are going to talk about Fernando. Who is also evil, but in a different way.

Fernando was such a grody person. Every single freaking time he would see me he would LOUDLY proclaim in his breathy, accented, slimy voice, “Loralee, I love your F*CKING eyes!”

D-U-D-E!!!

The.way.he.said.it.was.so.GROSS.

To this day it still makes me feel like I need to shower and call some crisis center.

After about 6 months of her dating this piece of crap, my friend found out he was dealing drugs to little kids. We are talking elementary school age kids. (Yah. He’s a winner.)

Now, as sucky as her taste in men was, my friend was zelous in her love of children. She was so appalled and horrified that someone she was dating was making money by dealing poison to children. She wanted to turn him in to the cops, but was scared. So, being the friend that I was, I went with her to hold her hand as she turned his ass in.

To this day, I am not really sure HOW or WHY this happened, but somehow MY parents ended up down at the station signing papers authorizing me, as their minor child, to wear a freaking wire to bust this guy.

NOT my friend. The girlfriend. The one who issued the complaint.

ME.

They said that since I had so much theater experience I would be less “Obvious”.

Whatever.

I didn’t know it, but they tailed me for 2 weeks to make sure I was honest and legit. Finding THAT out was weird. I think they only tailed me so long because they were on the pervy side and my boyfriend and I were notorious of humping like bunnies in every parked car known to man.

After lots of conversations setting the deal up, I found myself at the PD briefing with about 15 people.

It was a very quirky mix of people, people. I don’t remember many of them clearly (Give me a break, it was fifteen freaking years ago) but I DO remember observing that I wasn’t sure if they were cops or a gaggle of rapist murders that all got their hair cut at “The Mullet Shack” hair salon.

It was a classy group. Which was further proved when it was time to select the “Signal Word” that would let the backups know that we were in trouble and needed assistance. Guess what they picked. Go on, guess.

Pathos?

No.

Eggplant?

No.

Cunundrum?

No.

Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious?

No.

One more try? Anyone?? Anyone?? FRY??? FRY???

The code word was, “TITS”

I know. I pretty much wanted to fall through the earth. You are talking about a girl who couldn’t even say “Vagina” until she was like in the delivery room pushing a kid out of one.

After that lovely moment a female officer escorted me to a separate room and taped a mic to my chest with what looked and felt like duct tape. Yes, getting the thing off was just as painful as you would think it would be. After I was mummified I went back into the conference room where the undercover dudes were waiting.

They introduced the plan. We set up the meeting with me pretending like I met a hot new boyfriend that was a total rebel that my parents hated. My friend told Fernando that I wanted to score some drugs to impress him and so that he wouldn’t think I was a lame goodie-goodie. He bought it.

I felt good about it as well. At least I did until they told me which of the cops was going as “My boyfriend”.

LAME!

WEAK!!

TOTALLY NOT COOL!!!

He was 4 inches shorter than me, had a handlebar mustache and wore skin tight wranglers on his tiny bird legs with a belt buckle larger than the circumference of his head. I think I outweighed him by about 90 pounds.

Yah. We really looked “Legit” as a couple. I mean, I love dating guys that look like I can break them with my freakishly weak and saggy thighs.

I got in his EL COMINO and we drove to the apartment complex where the drop was supposed to go down. We pull in to the drive and the cop says into his mic,

“Uh, oh…”.

UH, OH?!

UH, OH??!!

“What THE HELL do you mean by UH, OH???!!!”

“Um. I busted these guys last week for stolen videos.”

FRICK!

FRACK!!

FRICKEN, FRACKIN, FRICKER!!!!…Is pretty much the PG version of my reaction.

Fernando took one look at this guy and pulled his connection to the side.
They KNEW. I saw it in their eyes. We were SO in trouble. In my head I kept saying “Tits! Tits!! TITS!!!” If only that could have been a GOOD thing, but no.

I was sweating buckets and was trying to not to lose control of my bladder, because me peeing all over a cop-owned El Comino would have not helped matters at all.

Fernando came back over and motioned for me to roll down the window.

He looked out at me and said, “You have the wrong guys, man. We don’t do stuff like that, ok?” Then he leaned down into my ear and whispered, “Get out of here. You are SO in trouble.”

So we DID.

After we were out of sight the cop started talking to his unit on his mic.

I.was.so.pissed.off.at them

They knew where we were going weeks before hand. They spent two freaking weeks tailing ME, but they don’t bother to at least run the address to make sure, UH, THE SAME ARRESTING OFFICERS ARE NOT THE ONES THEY ASSIGN TO PROTECT A MINOR DRUG INFORMANT???????!!!

I was completely freaked out and spent the next week convinced I was going to wake up sharing a bed with a horse head or something. I got a phone call from the cops a couple of weeks later. They wanted me to try again.

Probably the one and only time I have or will ever tell a cop to jump in a lake.

Says a lot, considering how I feel about uniforms…

I should have “Just said no.”

Sigh.