Cop Dude

One afternoon Fernando sits. It is a slow day, wretchedly so, at the Dominion. Five o'clock and only two customers? On a New Release Tuesday? Granted, it was a shitty New Release Tuesday, but still.

Fernando heads into the back to empty his bladder and when he comes back up front he is glad to see one a young woman, one of his quasi-regulars. “Hello,” he says to her.

“Hi,” she responds. She has in her hands the case for one of Fernando's movies that had come out about a month prior. “How are you?”

“I'm well enough. Slow day, though. Even the traffic on the highway has been oddly tame. There's not any kind of surprise sports thing going on tonight, right?” Any sports would be a surprise to Fernando, who keeps up to date regarding them about as well as the average person follows the development of D&D Next.

“Maybe it's the cop in your parking lot.”

This is also news to Fernando. “Cop in my parking lot?”

“Well, not right in there. A little ways down, more towards The Distraction.” The Distraction is a restaurant which lies between the Dominion and the gas station, one which produces pizzas which have given the world a unique unit of measurement for pizza grease: the Bill. One Bill of grease is equal the amount flop sweat produced by a fat guy working in a ninety-degree environment for one hour. Pizzas from The Distraction range anywhere from .3 to 4 Bills, even among pizzas which contain the same toppings. It's quite bizarre.

Fernando presses his lips together, strides out to the front of the store, and peeks outside. Lo and behold, a blue police car squats maybe fifty feet from the Dominion's front door. “Yeah, that could very well do it, I guess,” he grumbles once he ducks back inside. But there is little Fernando can do to fight the law. The law would win.

At the end of the day, Fernando's take-home was only slightly larger in size than the average Grinch's heart. It disheartened him.

Cop Dudes, if you want to set up a speed trap, don't do it near my store. Don't do it near anybody's store. Public safety and doing your job or whatever, yeah, I get it. You still scare off customers.