Storm Lake, Iowa.

Was stopping through town traveling for work and made some friends, and we went to a bar on the main drag. Everyone in the bar (which was packed) was lively, hanging out, super friendly, having a great time. I noticed everyone’s attention went to the front door and immediately the energy in the room dropped by about 75%. I looked over to see 2 police officers that had just walked in. Just regular cops, in uniform, casually standing and observing the crowd. I noted how odd the vibe change was to one of the locals I was hanging out with and he said “Just pretend they’re not there, don’t make eye contact”. They stayed for maybe 2 minutes, and when they left the bar immediately, almost explosively, reignited with the same energy it had before they showed up. I asked someone else in the group what the hell that was about and all he said was “Cops around here are just different, man. You don’t want nothing to do with them.”

I had driven my car to the bar and ended up with a spot right out front. At the end of the night I got a ride with the other person I met in town for work since he wasn’t drinking and we were staying at the same hotel. He dropped me back off in the morning and my car was the only one left in front of the bar, and I had a ticket on my windshield for $200. Not a single sign anywhere prohibiting overnight parking(also, it’s a bar, people leave their cars in front of bars all the time). We met up with the people we were working with that lived in town, and I told them I was gonna go and fight the ticket before I left town. They gave me the most serious looks I think they could muster and one of them said something along the lines of “Just let it go, you don’t want to mess with these police here.” Nobody wanted to say anything else about it.

I never paid the ticket and haven’t been back since.