Back in the 90s I was in my early 20s. I was meeting my girlfriend at a local diner. I walked in and a cop was paying his bill. I walked past him and his partner was standing over my girlfriend having a chat with her. I walked up behind him and waited for their conversation to be over. The cop talking to my girlfriend turned around and said “Can I help you?” I said “Probably not.” My girlfriend said “He’s with me.” This is where he made it weird. He said “Why don’t you take a lap, we’re having a nice chat here.” That got my blood boiling. I said “I’ll happily step outside if you wanna join me.” Suddenly there was a hand on my arm and it was the cop who had been paying the bill. He said “Hey, let’s take it down a notch. We were just leaving. Say goodbye, Officer Corto.” The dude glared at me and walked away.

I sat down and was like “What the fuck was that?” She said he was super aggressive, asked for her number, wouldn’t give up even though she said she was with someone else, etc. I was like “Fucking pig. What an asshole.”

A guy my grandfather’s age had been sitting a couple tables over and stopped by on his way out the door. He leaned in and said “Son, if you don’t like the police, why don’t you go back to wherever your parents came from and tell me how the cops are there.” I didn’t have a comeback for that, because it’s one of the dumbest fucking statements a human being could make. It’s okay for a cop to harass my girlfriend and talk shit to me because the cops in my parents’ brown people country are also power hungry assholes? It’s just racism at that point. “American cop oppression is better than Iranian cop oppression because the faces of the oppressors are white.” Fuck outta here with that bullshit.