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A story by Charredtorso

Just before I became a cop, I married (for the 3rd and final time) into a large family of upper middle class Catholics. My Father in Law was a retired VP for a major insurance company. He and the rest of the family, including in laws, wouldn't say SHIT if they had a mouth full. I was the infidel bastard of the family. The term "opposites attract" defines my 28 year marriage to my wife.

When I began working as a cop out in "sleepy hollow" the family was enthralled by my stories about writing parking tickets, taking burglary reports and the occasional family fight. There wasn't much else going on in sleepy hollow. Everyone on my wife's side of the family had well paying and very boring jobs, so my colorful language delighted everyone at family gatherings.

When I got fed up and went to work for a Ghetto police department, they were all shocked. "Why would you want to do something so dangerous?" "Aren't you afraid of working down there?" True, it was like going from a Girl Scout Troop to a SEAL Team, but I loved it.

About a week or so after going to work in "the hood", my training officer and I were driving around in the worst part of the city. There was a large vacant lot that use to house an apartment building, until the tenants burned it down twice for entertainment. There was a large mound of dirt over what use to be the swimming pool and behind the mound was an alley. We rolled up to a stop sign across from the vacant lot. A 14-16 year old on a bike, rolled up on top of the mound, pulled out a semi -automatic handgun and fired several shots at us. Before we could recover, he spun the bike around and hauled ass off into the alley. Every cop in the city looked for that little bastard for a couple of hours. Long story short, he was nowhere to be found.

Time marches on. Because my wife wasn't happy about the possibility of becoming a widow, she wasn't real happy about me going to work in a combat zone. I decided not to tell her about getting shot at. A couple of days later, my partner/training officer called me to say he was taking a few days off and I would be working with another officer. He called the house, while I was out and spoke to my wife. "I guess __________ told you about getting shot at the other day?" Shaken, my wife said NO and he realized he screwed up.

An hour or so later, I come back home to find my wife in tears. "Why didn't you tell me you got shot at?" "Ah, it was nothing, he didn't hit us." I tried to down play it as much as possible, but she was pissed! A week later, we were having a big family birthday party or some other celebration. Out of the blue, my Father in Law says "Well, I heard you had a little excitement down in _________" "Ha ha, EVERY night is exciting down there." "_________ says you got shot at the other night." "Yeah, but he didn't hit us...." I tried to minimize the event, but they all wanted to hear the whole story. "Tell us what happened, tell us what happened!"

Something snapped in my infidel skull. "We were cruising around in the worst part of the city, when this LITTLE MOTHERFUCKER rolled up on his bike and started bust'in caps at our asses....." All 16 people at the dinner looked at me like I just drop kicked a baby. Eyes and mouths were wide open.

no one said a word for a minute or two, they were in shock. Apparently, no one had ever said Mother-fucker before in their presence. Conversation quickly shifted to mundane topics they were all comfortable with. In my remaining 10 years in the ghetto, the only time any member of my family asked me anything about work was if it was on the news the night before.