Background Check

One month after completing my 27-page application to volunteer with the local police department, I was called in for an interview. I’d been warned by some of my fellow cadets that honesty regarding your criminal history is paramount, so I came prepared.

So I’m just going to ask you a few questions. Have you ever committed a felony in this state?

No. Nor in any other state.

Well, have you every committed a misdemeanor in this state?

Probably, so maybe you could define misdemeanor by way of example.

Suddenly a three-page list of misdemeanors materialized and I felt proud upon discovering I’d committed several of these offenses, lest he think my history colorless and stale.

I told him about my bout with indecent exposure, a misdemeanor that immediately caught my attention. My crime involved flashing a Cessna overhead while backpacking in The Place That Must Not Be Named. He jotted down some notes and told me that he was mostly concerned about sex offenders.

The officer then asked if I ever stole from my workplace. I mentioned the chocolate chip cookie caper at Marie Callenders, whereupon he asked me to give a dollar amount of the theft. Would you say $100 in cookies, or $500 dollars? What are we looking at here? I replied that I ate approximately a bakers dozen during my tenure at Marie Callenders. (The theft occurred in the 1980s so it was difficult to adjust for inflation and provide a dollar amount).

Soon, I felt like this was confession and hence began to spill it all. I told him about shoplifting a handful of 99 cents pins in my “tweens” with Kelly G. at Pic N Save in Orange County and then attempting to sell the same pins back without a receipt. He jotted down the dollar amount.

So I pulled out the big guns and asked him to clarify what the misdemeanor list meant by “public dumping”? I thought for sure he was referring to what the academic literature calls “creating an informal toilet” – you know, say, peeing in a National Park - but what he actually meant was: Had I ever unloaded my R.V. sewage into the local wastewater system?

He then asked if I’d ever done drugs, and I told him I drank cider, HARD cider. Have you ever smoked marijuana? Well, sure, if you count second-hand smoke at the Yankee games. So he wanted to know how many times I breathed seconds at these games. I gave him a ballpark figure, and more note-taking followed.

He told me I’d be scheduled for a voice stress analysis test next Tuesday, which he assured me, was wholly reliable, far more trustworthy than the antiquated lie-detector test. I asked him if an individual could intentionally bias the voice stress test by feigning stress, and he said “yes”. Interesting.

With my current silver-hair inducing job at the stress factory, I really don’t have time to be a volunteer, but nevertheless, I just can’t seem to stop whatever this is I’m attempting to do. What am I seeking? Again, I quote Joseph Campbell: …the experience of being alive. I’m beginning to think that being a professor doesn’t provide something I so desperately need.