Vanilla

A while ago I was on call for after hours emergencies when I got a call for an after hours emergency… It was winter, so it was dark early, and around dinnertime this guy came home to his apartment and saw a large blue plastic tarp laid out in his carport, so he couldn’t park there. Then he saw the tarp move a little. And some more. Something was under the tarp in his carport. He called the cops, they called me, and I called him. According to him, there was something alive underneath the tarp in his carport.

Where I work, when you’re on call for after hours emergencies, it’s actually got to be an emergency for an ACO to roll out from home, pick up a rescue truck, and respond to the call. I thought about it for a minute. Most likely there was a skunk hiding under the tarp in his carport. “Dude, leave it alone, it’ll be gone tomorrow morning,” is what I thought about saying.  But then I also thought, an injured animal will also hide under a tarp in a carport, like for example the neighbor’s cat that conceivably may have been hit by a car. “Keep your eyes on the tarp, I’ll see you in 30 minutes.”

I roll up half an hour later and find the dude standing in front of his apartment building’s carport, looking at a large blue tarp spread out in his section for parking his car. And, it moves a little. Something alive is under there for sure. Could be a hurt cat; I’m concerned. Could also be a skunk… I’m also concerned.  I light the carport up with my high beams and the sweet cop-style spotlight mounted by my driver’s door.

Nowadays I’m kind of known for being the ACO who gets squirted by the skunk no matter what the circumstances are, you can reference a number of earlier posts. But back then, I was still nervous and made far better tactical decisions. So in this case, I drew my collapsible baton (excellent for prying open manhole covers to rescue ducklings, other than that it just kind of looks bad ass on my duty belt) and gently lifted up the nearest corner of the tarp, slowly, so as not to spook the skunk into squirting me… I remember a vague smell of vanilla, but my adrenalin is flowing pretty good so I ignore it, and I find feet.

Two bare, dirty ass man-feet, attached to a naked man snoring underneath a tarp in this dude’s carport.

I call 5-O for backup, since I’ve not been trained yet on using my catchpole on naked men sleeping under tarps or really anywhere, and wait for the cops.  While we’re waiting I look around a bit and while it doesn’t register at the time I remember seeing a half dozen or so small bottles of vanilla extract scattered around the floor near the tarp. The cops get there pretty quick and pull the tarp off the guy, wake him and stand him up. He is, of course, blitzed. Nice smelling breath though.

One of the cops finds the guy’s underpants on the other side of the carport near someone else’s car, reunites them with the hammered guy, they put his story together and find out he simply had a fight with his girlfriend who kicked him out of her house two blocks away and wouldn’t let him leave with her bottle of vodka. So, he walked down to the local grocery store, shoplifted their entire stock of vanilla extract, and, well, the details from his version are less clear but he got loaded, lost his clothes and decided to take a nap in the carport.

I was dumbfounded, and curious. I asked one of the cops about it. She looked at me like I was new. Turns out vanilla extract is like 40 proof and tastes awesome. It’s on display in the baking section, not the booze section, super easy to steal, and is even more popular among the local drunks than mouthwash. No one ever figured out what the guy did with the rest of his clothes, but the cops ended up releasing him into his girlfriend’s custody and my caller was ultimately able to park his car in his carport.

I think they changed the recipe for vanilla extract more recently, I was checking it out at the store the other day while The Bride was in the asparagus section, and it’s like who ever makes it is now proudly labeling it “alcohol free.”  Where’s the fun in that?