M I S H A P S

tj|tl|in|ca|st

M I S H A P S
tj|tl|in|ca|st

In the wee hours of the morning, I find myself driving around a nice Chicago suburb looking for a place to street-camp for the night. After a bit of searching I discover a suitable spot and park the van. I immediately retire for the evening, taking care to not turn on an interior light, or leave the van, with the goal of keeping a low profile. Well, it isn't anymore than 10 minutes when two police cars show up. I immediately hit the floor, hoping they will just shine their spot lights on the van then move on. Well, after their little light show I hear two car doors slam and I know the gig is up.

Shortly thereafter, there's a knock on the van's double-doors and soon I find myself out on the lawn with two bright flashlights shining in my face. I go through the drill of explaining myself, all the why's, what's, and when's. I have to admit, I'm getting pretty good at this, given all my practice from past police encounters.

However, one of the officers turns out to be somewhat thickheaded. She certainly isn't the straightest shooting gun in the stockpile, for she doesn't understand my simple explanation as to why I'm in the neighborhood. She actually believes my intention of driving to Chicago is to find out an Internet connection. During questioning she asks me why did I come to Chicago to find an Internet connection when I could have stayed in Portland, Oregon (my hometown) and done the same. I almost laugh at her stupid question. The scary thing is she's packing a gun so I refrain from pissing her off. I then re-explain myself and she finally gets it.

But, she isn't through with me just yet, no. She then goes on to accusing me of stealing my Internet connections. In response, I tell her I'm not doing anything illegal, the airwaves are public access. She then says she isn't going to be the "Internet Police" tonight (oh, geeze, thanks for that). The other officer, the sensible one, tells me about a local Internet café that I could park at for the night. But, of course, they follow up that suggestion with, "but don't tell anyone we sent you." I then ask if there are any crappy neighborhoods I can park in, somewhere where folks won't give a damn who parks there and their response is "you wouldn't want to park there, you'd get a different sort of visitor." Hmmm, good point.

They finally take leave of me and I'm on my own once again. I decide to get out of Dodge, so to speak, or at least far enough out of their precinct to avoid another encounter. I'm beginning to discover that when traveling east of the Mississippi, successful scouting for a sweet street-camping spot is more art than science, with a good measure of luck thrown in on the side. People east of the Mississippi are turing out to be more paranoid than their western counterparts.