I started in the traffic detail in 1999 and have worked almost every Thanksgiving night since. Thanksgiving always falls on my normal work day, but I don’t mind coming in because it’s always slow. It’s the one night where it seems like the city calms down and takes a break from the usual nonsense. I usually only take one collision report and that’s about it. Two collision reports would be a “busy” night on Thanksgiving night.

So, when my son asked to ride with me on Thanksgiving night, I told him he was going to be bored, but he still wanted to go.

We had dinner at my mom’s house and I went into work late. I spent the first hour of my shift catching up on paper work as he waited for the action to start. The radio was dead and there were no calls holding just like I expected. Things were going just like I predicted.

Little did I know an unforeseen force was about to unleash its fury on our city. We were like a small boat out in the ocean as a great storm was about to strike. That’s when the flood gates opened and the calls jumped off.

For the next six hours the city exploded with calls. Before I knew it, I had handled 3 DUI collisions and a regular crash where an unlicensed driver ran a red light.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the stabbing call where an apartment floor was full of blood and looked like a slaughter house. What kind of person stabs another on Thanksgiving night?

That was the busiest Thanksgiving night in my career. Good thing I’ll have Christmas off. Who knows what’s going to happen that night.

Happy Holidays. It’s scary out there.