Mr. Police Man

I traveled to the Detroit Metro Airport today. That was exciting.

My dad’s friend went to New York to visit with his daughter and new grand-daughter, and he came back today so dad and I went to pick him up from the airport. It was a beautiful day to get in the car and drive with the windows open.

But anyway, the airport… So we got there around one-forty or so, which turned out to be a good thing, because it took a while to find the correct gate to meet him at. We did end up finding the gate by two, and since his flight wasn’t due in until about two-thirty it meant that we had a bit of a wait ahead of us. This of course was fine, no problem, or at least that’s the impression we had of the situation.

We held that impression until the police arrived.

The first police officer was a funny little man. He drove around in his little car, attempting to be intimidating. He was definitely one of those people that didn’t seem to carry much weight, while he certainly tried to be the voice of authority he wasn’t very authoritative.

First you need to understand something about the layout in front of the Delta Northwest gate. There is of course the building, and then in front of the building is a sidewalk followed by five lanes of traffic. The one closest to the curb is apparently the only one in which it is considered kosher to park and wait in. The others are driving lanes.

We were sitting in the second lane from the sidewalk waiting, and this was an apparent no-no. Mr. Wise Guy apparently thought he was super funny when he pulled up and asked, “What are you waiting for, a ticket?” Though I kept my mouth in check, my knee jerk response was, “Obviously. That’s exactly what we came here for.”

He proceeded to explain that we were parked in the road, and apparently people were complaining. I however, don’t believe the second part of this is true. I mean, really there were three other lanes there. Any moron could have figured out how to use one of them. But okay, whatever, we moved to the proper lane. He then proceeded to make everyone in the proper lane move up and all the gaps were filled. Can anyone say control freak on a power trip?

Not long after we, and those who were parked like we were, moved a whole new group of people took our places in the second lane. This is when the police van carrying three more police officers arrived. They joined the lone cop on his mission to deal with the “situation”. They appeared to be even less effective than he had been. While he backed off, they approached several people before they too backed off choosing instead to loiter by their van which they had parked in the third lane, creating a problem that had not previously existed.

However, the fun had only just begun. Not long after the arrival of the van police, another one showed up. This guy was on a motorcycle. Not once did he get off that motorcycle. In fact, he didn’t even really seem to say anything to anyone, he just road along the second lane in his motorcycle watching everyone. For a little while he two parked in the third lane and sat on his bike as traffic drove around him.

Eventually though, they all took off seeming to give up on what had been deemed an unfixable problem. A short while later an officer returned, this one on foot, and he walked the second lane, he never stopped to say anything to anyone.

It was insane. The first officer seemed to care SO much about how everyone was parked. He was very committed to his job as it related to parking control. It was almost comical.