While all those other Occupy sites were being broken up, things proceeded pretty peacefully here at Occupy Westside until yesterday, when Officer Bubba Grant of the local sheriff's department stopped by. We all knew he was looking for trouble when he got out ot his patrol car with one hand on his TASER and the other on his can of Mace.
"What's this I hear about your protest getting out of hand?" he asked, his eyes no doubt swivelling from side to side to take in the scene behind his de riguere mirrored sunglasses. "We been getting complaints about loud protests, people sleeping outside at night, place getting all trashy and sech..."
I pointed at Grampa sitting in his rocker whittling, and explained, "Well, Grampa here had his hearing aid turned off by accident, so we was all having to yell to talk to him, but we found out what the problem was and got that fixed..."
Officer Bubba seemed a bit disappaointed at that...
"And Junior here, he wanted to get an early start on deer season without waking everyone up in the house when he left, so he slept out on the porch the other night..."
Officer Bubba deflated a bit more, then pointed at the pile of trash out by the curb. "Awright," he said, hiking up his belt and showing his pistol, "What about that?"
A moment later, air brakes hissing, the city trash truck pulled up to the curb, blocking officer Bubba Grant's patrol car in as Zeb and Chuck jumped off the truck and began throwing trash bags and emptying cans into the back of the truck.
"Weekly trash pickup," I told him, and held out a Dunkin' box. "Doughnut?"
Officer Bubba scowled, seeing he wasn't gonna get the chance to use his Mace or TASER, or handcuff anyone and drag 'em off to jail. He took a blueberry creme filled and waited for the truck to move so he could get in his patrol car and leave.
