Tonight, I dispatched to a call involving a suspicious vehicle that was stopped in the right turn lane of a major road with no hazard lights on. When I pulled up, I saw a truck stopped in the lane just east of the intersection.

I walked up and saw a man in his 80s sitting in the driver seat with a two litter bottle of 7-Up in his lap. The man was lost and a bit confused. He was in no shape to drive and eventually agreed to let us give him a ride home.

The other cop on the call was going to take him home and I was going to park his truck in the adjacent parking lot, but there was one problem. He peed himself and his driver seat was soaked.

I saw that and wondered how I was going to get that truck into a parking spot without getting my pants wet. I shone my flashlight into the truck’s interior and saw a towel! That was a possibility, but the urine was going to soak through the towel within seconds.

Too bad there wasn’t a trainee working tonight. It would’ve been character building for them to figure this out.

Letting the guy drive into the parking lot wasn’t an option. Let’s just say it was a long story. Calling a tow truck wasn’t going to work either. I was just going to have to drive it.

I walked over to the other cop and asked, “Do you have any paper bags in the trunk?”

I asked this because paper bags are used for evidence rather than plastic bags like you see on TV or in the movies. He popped the trunk and there they were. Those large paper bags were my ticket to dry pants.

I pulled three out of his trunk and carried them to the pee-soaked driver seat. I placed them on the seat and carefully got in, making sure not to get my pants wet.

Once I was sitting on my paper bag throne I drove the truck out of the street and into a parking lot. I locked it up and happily walked away with dry pants.

Mission accomplished.

By the way, he wasn’t drunk. I checked the 7-Up bottle to make sure it really was soda.