Ontario, Ohio:
Well...yesterday i had a taste of the "new American police state" first hand.
My friend Sam and i went over to sams club to get a pair of tires put on my car. While we were waiting we were walking down the aisles just goofing off, sitting in the office chairs and in general minding our own business. During this time we saw one of those huge tacky inflatable Halloween decorations that people put on their lawns...it must have been like 10-12 foot high. I preceded to make some silly comments about how tacky it was. I joked saying that the only way to make it tackier would be to fill it full of hydrogen and float it over my lawn, and then as an end of Halloween bash i would shoot a flaming arrow at it and blow it up. My friend Sam, right after i said this says "yeah but then the shock wave would blow out your neighbors windows." and i responded saying "Yeah, that wouldn't be good" and perceded to make some puns on Halloween and the Hindenberg. This was probably 2 minutes of conversation out of 30 minutes there. After my tires were finished we picked up the car and drove off.
We decided to stop at our local grocery and pick up some food supplies. I had noticed there was a cop following me earlier and he had pulled in after us, i kept wondering if i had broken any traffic laws and my friend assured me i had not. We get out of the car and the cop pulls up and tells us to come over. Apparently some psycho fear-mongering fool had overheard us talking about a bomb and blowing up sams club. Now at this point i didn't even remember a 2 minute conversation about a silly ludicrous tacky Halloween decoration, and i was sure i hadn't said the word bomb. So both of us told the policeman we hadn't rememberer saying anything about a bomb.
Both of us were a little freaked out at this point and i was getting pretty upset, and unfortunately when i'm upset i don't always think as clearly as i like. The policeman precedes to ID us both (something that i still belive i should have refused and is completely unconstitutional) and another cop pulls up. At this point people are really staring at us and i'm fuming. The first cop tells us we need to wait for yet ANOTHER police man to get there because he is the one who took the employee's statement. So finally after about 5 minutes the other cop gets there and they do there little cop chat and the new cop motions me over to him and the first cop. So i go over and he asks me if i was talking about making a bomb, and again i didn't remember the totally meaningless conversation that i had earlier so i said i didn't think so. So then he tells me what the employee overheard (which wasn't even close to what we said of course) and that triggered the memory, i instantly laughed as said yeah i remembered saying THAT...it was just a stupid conversation about a Halloween decoration. Then they proceed to grill me...all good cop bad cop like i'm some kind of crook. The first cop says "I specifically asked you if you said anything about a bomb!" At this point i'm so pissed its taking alot of control to hold myself back from saying some stuff about our Orwellian government and the mind police. So i insist again that it was a STUPID conversation and we were just goofing off killing time and that i made no threatening comments.
This continues for a few minutes and they finally send me back over to the 3rd cop and pull my buddy over. Of course he tells them the same thing i did and they grill him for a while. Finally they come back over and proceed to LECTURE us on how we need to be more careful what we say, like having a completely hypothetical conversation about something totally ridiculous ( where in the heck were 2 guys from Mansfield ohio going to get a hold of that much Hydrogen???) is a crime. I didn't say anything and Sam is much cooler under fire so he finished by saying bye and we went inside the store.
Of course people are starring and glaring at us and i had totally lost my appetite so i didn't get anything. Sam picks up a back of chips and we go to the register. What happened next makes me think there may still be hope for America (which i truly love!). We were standing there in line and a guy next to me asks what happened. I proceed to (maybe a little loudly because of the adrenaline) tell the story in a quick condensed form. There were about 20 people in the lines around us, all types: young, middle-aged, older all from different walks of life. When i told my story all of them at that moment were disgusted with the police and America. I could see it on their faces and many of them made comments about it.
So all in all, my day yesterday was pretty crappy; but knowing that the American people may yet refuse to be oppressed gives me some hope.
