Thesmokinggun presents the police report from "The Mohammed Incident"

Crazy rock lady strikes again. Most recently, she called our local sheriff, the one who responded to her initial call, to request that he file an official police report concerning the incident, which I will remind you occurred over 7 months ago. Luckily, the sheriff stopped in while I was working and let me know about the existence of this document, so I rushed to the county sheriff's office the next morning (on the clock for the Census, obviously) to get my copy. It is the hottest document in town now. Here's the dope (it has been edited for content and formatted to fit your screen):

Civil matters- complaints
Reporting officer: Clyde Harris
Report date: 8/15/09 8:42 Date dispatched: 8/15/09 8:45
Case number: 2-09-001611

Complainant information #1.... will be omitted in this version due to litigous nature of the complainant.

Suspect/Arrestee Information- #1:
Prompt valid in: Costello, Joseph K

Narrative by Harris: On 8-15-09 at approxiamately 0842 hours I was dispatched to __ North Fork Road. The call was in regards to a possible trespassing violation. The complainant was identified as _________.

Upon arrival I met with ___ and she stated that the North Fork Homeowner's Asssociation had bladed and widened North Fork Road onto her property. ____ stated the she had her land surveyed about two years ago and the survey markers were probably bladed over. I asked ___ if she would show me approximately where on her land that the survey markers would be. ___ and I both spotted three different survey markers that showed the eastern boundary of her land. All three of the boundary markers were well off of the west side of North Fork Road. Appproximately eight feet west of the road (sic). ___ then showed me a map of her property and the boundary markers coincided with the map. I explained to ____ that there was nothing I could do for her as North Fork Road did not touch her property line and that this call was really a civil call in nature.

SUPPLEMENT BY HARRIS

On 3-16-10 at approximately 1715 hours, I received a phone call from _____. The phone call was in regards to events that happened a week prior to the original call on 8-15-09, _____ asked me if I would document her continued complaint from that incident, AS THE ALLEDGED SUSPECT IN THE MATTER, JOSEPH COSTELLO, WAS STILL LIVING AND WORKING IN THE AREA AND CREEPED HER OUT. (CAPS provided by me for emphasis, but this is the real text of the report.)

____ asked me if I remembered her complaint about a subject identified as Joseph COSTELLO. I told _____ I remembered her complaining about Costello, as he was moving rocks along her property line and North Fork Road. _____ told me that when she made contact with COSTELLO and asked him what his name and business was along her property line, COSTELLO would only give the name MOHOMMAD (sic). ____ stated to me that this had really upset her and asked me if I would talk to COSTELLO about the situation, which I did. I made contact with COSTELLO on the morning of 8-15-09 at his parent's residence on North Fork Road, of which I can t remember the address.

When I asked COSTELLO why he had given ___ the name of MOHOMMAD. he said that ____ was being a royal pain, moving big rocks onto North Fork Road and he had stopped to move the rocks out of the road when she made contact with him. COSTELLO told me he was just being ornery and joking when he told her his name was MOHOMMAD. When I asked COSTELLO if he would not bother ____ any more, he said that he would leave her alone.

This supplemental report was completed at the complainant's request, and there is still no basis for any criminal investigation.

No further action.
___________________________________________

Just a few comments on this. First, since when has "living and working in the area and creeping her out" an investigable offense?? Second, a trespassing complaint seven months post facto is not likely to have much merit.

Also, I found out the real reason behind this request. A few days later, my boss at the Census took me aside and asked if I'd had an incident with a "crazy-sounding woman" (those were his exact words) in Centennial. I stated that once, seven months ago I was involved in a minor incident and that I believed this woman had called my boss trying to get me fired, and was using the written police report as ammunition for this character assassination. Then, after my boss told me to skip her house while delivering the Census, she called him back to report that I had skipped her house and she had not received her Census. So you see what I'm dealing with: a devious, duplicitous, anxious crazy old lady with nothing better to do than try to get me fired.

But I'm still somewhat of a folk hero in my subdivision and many people know me only as Mohammed; I got several friendly handshakes from neighbors of hers recognizing my service to the community.

In another random thought, is there anyone else that thinks Duke's Coach K has really pulled the wool over America's eyes by convincing us that his name is pronounced with an "S"?

Circletalking the shoesaleswoman. Further news from the crazy rock lady!

On my first payday for the census, I decided to splurge on something I've wanted and needed for quite awhile: a nice pair of boots I can use for work and walking. So I went to the most natural place to buy boots: the World Wide Web. Not finding any crazy deals, and being wary of buying something as intimate as steel-toed word boots from a computer screen, I went to the next-best place for boots: Boot Barn. I realize this sounds like a store out of a bad movie like "Did You Hear About the Morgans," but it's actually TOTALLY REAL. And they do stock lots of boots indeed.

Minus blue makeup, this ad pretty much applies to me.

First off, the lady arranging the boots won me over with her good-girl country-western good looks. So I was going to buy something no matter what. She ignored me just enough that I had to seek her out and ask her questions once in awhile, that boot vixen! But anyway, I tried on many boots. That's not the funny part but yes, if you must know, I fall over alot while I'm trying boots and it's got to be pretty funny to the store security cameras and the people that may watch them. Because I'm tall and my balance is poor.

So I go to buy the boots, waiting for a moment behind a couple junior high school girls buying a very distasteful pink leather cowgirl jacket that may or may not be reversible despite its cowgirl nature. When I get to the front of the line, I note I'm buying from the manager; I cringe because I figure this means she's going to hit me up for upgrades and warranties galore. And sure as Asian people love mashed potatoes, she does.

The T in the middle is quite unnecessary, especially because if you read it phonetically it says "boot-T barn"

Manager: "Now, the first thing you're going to want to get with these boots is a good waterproofing agent."

RetiredJK (I show her a tag on my shoes that states they are "WATERPROOF"): It says they're waterproof already."

Manager: "You should still add some more waterproofing to make them that more waterproofed."

RetiredJK: "Waterproof is an all-or-nothing deal to me, and these boots claim to be waterproof. Are they waterproof or do I need a "more-waterproof" boot?"

Manager (hastily): "They certainly are."

Evidently, I am not the only person who finds Boot Barn funny enough to blog about.

Later, she tries to sneak in a rewards card:

Manager: "Would you like to sign up for a Boot Barn frequent shopper card?"

Retired JK (kind of cutting her off): "I don't want anything that won't save me money today."

Manager: "This can save you ten percent!"

RJK: "Today!?"

Manager"... No."

RJK: "Just stop now."

I just ate a chicken pot pie for the first time in like ten years, and they sure seemed alot bigger when we were kids!

Census 2010 Part 2: Is This Real Life?

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Census 2010

So training started today for Census enumerators in and around Albany County, Wyoming. I count myself so lucky to be part of this group. But as is true of much guvment (that is how our training leader says it, seriously) work it can be tedious, in fact it is quite often boring to the point of tears. Government (which will heretofore be abr. "guvment") conversations seem to be more circular. Vagueness and redundacy are treasured. In short I'm quite surprised the Census hasn't been privatized by Google. It's like, if you want to know where the road is, do you actually drive to the road? No you look at it from a satellite. Duh!

Anyway, on with the training. There did not seem to be a formal "beginning" or "end" to training, nor did there appear to be any logical agenda or schedule. Lunch was understood to start at noon and end half an hour later but that was really the structure of our day. It started out with alot of talks about small towns in south southeast Wyoming. Then we filled out forms for two hours. I think if I had really studied, I could have crushed the forms in ten minutes flat. Progress be damned, though, we had to ensure that everyone had two blue pens and one neon highlighter first and then talk of the ramifications of losing said highlighter.

The first time you lose your highlighter (item Z1908) you will be warned (in writing). The second you will be terminated. This "two strikes you're out" rule also applies in the following situations: wearing a helmet while riding an ATV, sexual harassment, and working overtime. Overtime requires pre-approval because without it people might overexert themselves, or possibly waste money with overtime pay, because all the Census Bureau's other expenses seem air-tight and unwasteful.

After the form-filling-out, a guy showed up to fingerprint us. Luckily, a random women had also been trained to fingerprint for the federal guvment, which is important because YOU HAVE TO BE FINGERPRINTED 14 TIMES BY 2 DIFFERENT PEOPLE EACH. We managed to tear through 12 people in two and a half hours. Some of the folks were elderly and forced into quite uncomfortable positions by the fingerprinting situation! I was told by BOTH fingerprinters that I had quite distinct and dare I say beautiful fingerprints, to which I quite characteristically replied, "I know." I got paid about $39 plus mileage to have my fingerprints taken!

There was also this great snippet of conversation talking about fingerprints:

Boss: "It's important that you roll your finger, so we get all the ridges and apexes."
Me: "Apices."
Boss: "Come again?"
Me: "Nevermind."

At one point, I realized that getting the group off track was quite easy, I figured it might be fun to try my hand at misdirection. When Lakewood, a suburb of Denver, came up, I realized that I had found my opportunity: Casa Bonita. I would say that we talked about Casa Bonita for five minutes, and then a fish restaurant in Lakewood for three more. Then we talked about other Denver suburbs. I would say all included I took up about fifteen minutes just by saying "Casa Bonita."

We spent a good two hours discussing assaults, safety, and mostly threats from dogs. Some of the better questions regarding dogs: "If there's a little dog hanging onto your ankle and you kick it, are you covered against a lawsuit?" "What if there's a big Doberman in the yard?" We also learned how to anticipate dog attacks and appear submissive in the face of dog aggression.

The afternoon was pretty dull, and we really could have knocked about two hours off the whole day. But the training seems more guided by the hours that need to be filled than any substance filling those hours and we chatted for quite awhile. At the end of the day I looked at the poster on the wall of the fire station in which we convened, and found quite a bit of comic relief for me.

I can't find an image of this poster on Google images, which means it is quite rare indeed. I also haven't the signal to send the pic from my cell phone. But to give you an idea, it portrayed an angelic babe with wings on it above two cars which had quite obviously crashed. It encouraged people to use child safety seats. The caption? "Babies can fly.... once." I'm not sure who made this but it's clearly not in the best taste even if the black humor is overwhelming. I mean, dead baby jokes are sometimes funny but the idea of a flying, winged dead baby is f-ing hilarious.

Also, there was an Asian woman in our class, thus I made the common-sense decision to either leave training first before she could get behind the wheel or wait around for the streets to clear.

I drove past a McDonald's on the way home and had a hankering for a double cheeseburger. But what did I see advertised on the window? A phony McDouble. I will never eat your McDouble, Sir. (Sir is Ronald McDonald.)