Harold was a rookie cop who was somehow wrong for the job.  His appearance was part of the problem.  With a 28inch waist, Harold barely cast a shadow on a sunny day.  With that boyish face.  nobody took him seriously.  He thought he wanted to be a hard-nosed officer of the law, but it was not to be.

Harold envied the older beat cops.  Some looked like recruiting posters for "a few good men." One eight year veteran could twirl his night stick so fast it became a blur.  Holding the leather thong in one hand, he'd twirl his baton, and with the other hand, tip his cap to young women.  They giggled, and he loved it.

Harold wanted to be like that, but he dared not practice night stick twirling during the daylight hours.  No, he'd best learn twirling under cover of darkness-on the midnight shift.

Alone on the street late at night, Harold twirled and twirled.  But one night the stick got away from him.  As if with a mind of its own, the spinning baton traveled through the air for about eight feet, then plunged like a harpoon into the plate glass of a storefront window on Main.

Knowing he must account for damage on his beat, Harold wrote an incident report, fabricating the incident as the act of an unknown vandal:

"At approximately 0230 hours.  this reporting officer (RIO) heard the sound of breaking glass at the above incident location.  RIO, observing a juvenile fleeing the scene, gave immediate chase.  Suspect ran north for two blocks; turned east for one block, then south for an undetermined number of blocks where R/O lost sight of suspect."

Harold notified a store official and his supervisor.  At the end of the shift he turned in his report and went home.

The next night Harold reported to the squad room for rollcall.  The sergeant read aloud from the pass-on book, relating incidents from the previous 24 hours, things like robberies, burglaries, stolen cars-even Harold's store window incident.

The sergeant paused, looked up at Harold, and said, "You'll be glad to know that we found the vandal who broke the window on your beat last night."

Wearing a big smile, the sarge reached under his desk, and with his thumb and first finger, held up Harold's night stick.  "We recovered this at the scene.  Even has your ID carved on it."

After paying for damages, Harold said he didn't think he was cut out for law enforcement and decided on a career change.  The sergeant was grateful for that decision.