Ego Versus Common Sense

I was a police officer working the midnight shift. A few minutes after midnight, dispatch sent my partner and me to Flynn’s jewelry store. Timing was perfect. We were talking to the area cars almost directly across the street.  The second car checked the front while we drove to the rear.

Officer Johnson, in the second car, informed us via radio the store had been broken into. He saw ceiling tiles broken in. No suspects seen.

It was likely suspects were still there.

The store was in the middle of a fifteen-store complex. I felt it was necessary to get onto the roof. I needed to be sure no one was on the roof.

I told Brian I was going to climb up the drainpipe.

Brian looked. “You’re crazy!” Dispatch can contact the fire department for a ladder.

Mind you, it was January, in Michigan, and a clear sky. The temperature was fifteen degrees. I looked at Brian.

“I am not waiting for hose draggers to wake up, get out of their warm beds, dress, and drive over here.”

Brian just stared. “It is a thirty-foot climb. It’s freezing and you’re wearing gloves.”

“Brian, you have seen me do this before with no problem.”

“Not with gloves.”  He said.

Brian stood there shaking his head as I started to climb the gutter.  When I reached the roof edge, I grabbed onto it to pull myself up. One minor problem, it was ice covered. I slipped and fell the thirty feet back first.  Fortunately, I landed on cardboard boxes. I was not hurt.

Brian came running up. “Are you alright?”

“I think so. You can call for the fire department now.”

And the moral of this story is. “Don’t let your ego overrule your common sense.”