If you threw out everything that comes your way that looks off, the entire ad industry, every relationship you’ve ever had, and the world economy would grind to a halt.
You accept. You move on.
We don’t do this.
A few minutes after I tried to buy my chicken a burly guy came out. He was wearing a baseball cap that said NYPD on it.
He looked me in the eye and said to me, “that’s a counterfeit ten-dollar bill. You’re not getting your chicken.”
I said, “OK. Give me the bill back.”
“No,” he said, “I’m a cop. And I’m confiscating it.” He pointed to his hat. The sort you could buy on any one of approximately 13,452 corner stores in New York.
“You’re not a cop,” I said, out-burly-ing him. “You’re just pretending to be a cop. You’re just wearing a hat. You have no right to take my ten back.”
He continued to claim he was a cop.
“Let me see your badge. You’re impersonating a cop. That’s a crime.”
He pointed to his $4.95 hat.
We were standing chest to chest at this point. Though I had five semitic inches on him.
Just then, a real NYPD cop came into the restaurant with his partner. They were like so many New York cops, brusque, all-business and roughly five-by-five. Like me, all they wanted was their chicken dinner.
“Whassa problem?”
“He took my ten and won’t give me my chicken. He says it’s counterfeit.”
One cop couldn’t resist, “The chicken? It probably is counterfeit.”
The other Joe was in no mood for his funny sidekick. “Give him his chicken. You took his money. Give him his chicken.”
In a moment the fake cop gave me my bird. It was all I could do not to give him the bird.
The all-business cop said, “And take that hat off. You’re not a cop.”
I went home and never really thought about it again. Until just now when I saw a video on the Times site that showed three or five or seven masked cops accusing a woman of trying to run them down and pointing their guns in her face.
All three or five or seven cops were wearing masks.
I don’t know how there is not outrage.
Stone-throwing, Molotov-outrage.
Not Banksy-outrage.
Gasoline, liquid soap and a rag in an empty Dom bottle.
Class.
This is not “normal.”
It in no way resembles anything “amerikkkan,” unless you count the masked-cowards of the aktual kkk as aktual “law” officers. It doesn’t matter a whit your political stripe.
We don’t do masked cops.
Ever.
BTW.
We don’t do this.
Oh, wait.
First they came for ____ but I was not a ___...
We do do this.
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