My awesome dad was the one who came up with this super cool idea!
My dad was asking about what I was going to do for my new thing this year, and I was really uncertain. I knew I couldn’t get out of work, so it was a matter of going somewhere very early in the morning or very late.
Golf, laser tag, and even painting stuff at Color Me Mine all were little possibilities that I was probably going to do if I couldn’t think of anything better. That’s when my dad suggested this brilliant idea – “what about a police ride-along, sweetheart?”
Huh. I’d never thought about that!
We looked into a bit while on the phone together. I’ll admit, I didn’t look too deeply into the LAPD process, but from what I could gather it was a whole ordeal – it sounded like they got thousands of requests a year and we’d be lucky to hear any sort of response… Preference was given to people who were in training to be police officers. The idea seemed very far-fetched – especially because this was only a couple of weeks before I wanted to do it.
I ended up working the Santa Monica Festival, and thank goodness I did! While I was there, I met an officer who was doing community outreach and stuff. I said, “Hey, how hard would it be to do a ride-along?” He said, “Not hard at all. Here’s my card. Ride with me.” I said, “How far in advance do I have to set one up? ‘Cause I really want to do one on my birthday, but that’s about two weeks away.”
He looked in his phone, was working on my birthday, and said he’d be happy to take me.
Whoa! Way easier than I thought!
(How lucky was it that Officer Holloway works the 3am shift, so I wouldn’t even have to miss work? Boom! Stars aligned.)
This is where I’ll pick up next time.