A ride along with one big baby.

I got to go on a ride along with T-rex. I hated it. I hated the radar, the radio, the music, the speed, the driving, the hills and turns, and I hated the talking to random people who are already doing something illegal, or dumb. I will never go out again.

There are police wives who are babies, they sit in their chair, kiss their husband goodbye and wave out the window with their handkerchief as they blow their nose. Then there are the strong wives, who could be out there with their husbands, they are strong, know the dangers and fight back against bad guys too. I, my dear readers, am the former. I am okay with this. I much rather go back to the days where I thought he drove around and did nothing all day. Even if I knew that was not true it was easier to think that.

As soon as I got into the truck with T-rex I started to feel like a liability. I can’t say I really like that feeling. T-rex didn’t help with his run down of the rules. I mean I know this is his job, and he tells me these things so I can be safe, but I don’t like it. Right away we have to run off to catch a speeder. It was not that fun really. We didn’t get to speed, and I was okay with that. But the looking for a bad guy was not fun. The beeps of the Radar made my blood pressure rise. It was stressful. Then we did find someone going too fast, turning around in the middle of the interstate is not fun.

After that it was a 25 minute drive to go talk with drunks. I typically hate the road we had to take, and going 100 mph down the road didn’t help much. I was good until T-rex showed me how fast we were going. Once there talking to a drunk. All I could think was “I hope this guy doesn’t hurt T-rex, or have a gun, or . . “ you know all the dark dumb thoughts that we tend to push away. I understand why some cops come to think of everyone as a criminal. And that was only my first time seeing him work! Later in the night when he pulled over someone on the interstate my fears were worse. I worried about the other cars, the guy he pulled over and if he arrested someone. I had already made up my mind that if he arrested anyone I was going to get out of the truck and walk home.

I got to see firsthand how easily his job can go from calm to crazy, from safe to dangerous. I didn’t like it.

Yet, with as much of the stuff that I didn’t like I also got to see T-rex do what he loves. I got to see how great he is at his job. I got to see why some would like it. I got to see another side of my husband, one that I had not seen before. He was calm, professional, and well it was a little sexy. He was made for this work and I have nothing but respect for him and the profession. Mostly I had this feeling of “oh shoot, I thought his job was lazy, and I am too hard on him when he gets home, and I should clean the house more, make coming home something so great. I need to stop nagging about the kids when he comes home, and should avoid calling him but when he calls I should be happy he has a minute, and I know why he can never make it home on time.” I felt bad. I don’t like that feeling. There are a lot of things that are stressful about his job, and I felt like sometimes I add to his stress with my nagging, and yelling about the kids right away.

Don’t get me wrong, he needs to be nagged from time to time (any guy who says he doesn’t is full of it!) but I do hope that I can give him a moment to turn the cop off first. And that is something only he can do. He has done a great job at being cop at work and being dad at home. Seeing him become a different person on the job was scary, but it was also nice. So even though I am signing him up for banking classes I don’t think he will ever stop being a cop, and that is okay with me. I know he is great at his job, I know he is as safe as he can be, and I know he loves it.