Five

I really tried last night. I went to bed around 10 PM, deciding against my impulse to stay up and watch the State of the Union address. I would get a nice, full night of sleep before my long day and everything would be peachy.

Tomorrow is my long day because I get up in the morning with the Monkey, stay up all day with him, and then go to work all night. I'll sleep during the day Thursday after being up about 24 hours, and then work Thursday night. Then when the weekend hits I'll get back onto a day schedule where I'm sleeping at night. Then the whole cycle starts over. So basically twice a week I go from a day schedule to a night schedule. It's a little like a square peg and a round hole, but more like a peg that's been chipped away enough that it fits both square and round and you don't know where the hell to put it.

Well, 3 AM hit and I sat up in bed wide awake. I had a dream that I was at work and in trouble for doing a bad job approving reports. Like I had missed all kinds of spelling and grammar mistakes. Who the hell has dreams about spelling errors?

I guess work and being a supervisor has been on my mind a lot lately. If all goes well, if all goes the way I've been told it will go, I'm looking at a promotion to Sergeant in March. And yet, I'm worried. I'm worried that something will change, or somebody will change their mind. I have plenty of confidence in myself and my ability to be a supervisor. I'm worried that at the last minute they'll give it to someone else for some reason. Like move a Detective Sergeant back to Patrol Division to save the money from giving me a raise - basically the same treatment the Weirdo got at her job last year. It's like the closer it gets to March the more anxious I get. I just hit my 30th working day as shift supervisor, which qualifies me to get paid as a Sergeant. Submitting the paperwork to get the raise got me excited, but then I started wondering if the paperwork would bring just enough attention to the situation to motivate a change.

In other news, had one of those "moments" with a kid at work last week. This deadbeat son of a bitch "father" was visiting his ex wife and their son. He had watched the son all day so the mom could go to work. At first you'd think it was a good thing for him to do; put aside the troubles that ended the marriage so their son could be taken care of. Not so much. The jerk interrogated his 5 year old son all day.

Does your mom bring men over here?
Does your mom talk to other men on the phone?
Does your mom talk about me to other men?

Five years old. This poor kid wants to talk to his dad, wants the approval of his dad, but also doesn't want to talk about his mother to his dad because he knows that's a gray area. So the mom comes home just in time to catch the father in a rage.

Nobody will ever want you.
You'll never find better than me.
Whore.

This is, of course, right in front of the five year old. The verbal jabs turn to actual jabs, and the guy pins the woman down on the floor. He slaps, punches, and chokes her. Bends back her hands and fingers as she tries to defend herself. He draws blood. The five year old is crying, no doubt thinking that this is all because he talked to his dad during the day. At one point the guy snatches his son by the front of his shirt and drags him across the room like a bag of rocks. The woman got free, got a knife, and scared the monster enough to make him run out the front door of the apartment. He was long gone by the time we got there.

So I'm taking my notes and gathering all the required information. The woman decided to gather up some stuff and stay with her sister for the night. She was afraid to stay in her own apartment. As I'm standing in the hallway explaining how I would swear out warrants for the guy's arrest the five year old suddenly walked up in front of me and held his arms out to the side. He wanted a hug. I hugged the kid, realizing that it wasn't really me he was hugging. He was hugging safety, comfort, security. He was hugging the idea of a police officer and the stability that comes with them.

As we walked out the front door the five year old reached up and held my hand while scanning the woods and parking lot with his eyes. He asked me if I thought his daddy was going to attack us if we walked outside.

Not on my watch buddy.

He held my hand all the way to the car. The next morning I decided against going home and going to bed, and instead I stayed up to make sure the warrants for Battery and Cruelty to Children were signed, filed, and put onto the computer.

The way I see it, even if something goes wrong and I don't get the promotion in March, at least I can still spend my time at work locking up worthless assholes like this guy.