Norbert has a few friends in for the evening. It’s a typical twenty-something party with lots of beer and chips.

It’s 2:30 a.m. and the party is winding down. That’s when Norbert pulls out his 9 mm semi-automatic pistol to show everybody. The party-goers are properly impressed at Norbert’s machismo. That is, until he starts to holster the weapon. That’s when it goes off!

The bullet goes through Norbert’s left hand and grazes the right leg of Greta, Norbert’s girlfriend. Somebody calls the police, but when officers arrive, both Norbert and Greta deny the facts of what really happened.

Both are treated at the local ER and released. Norbert is taken immediately to the county jail where he is booked for improperly firing his weapon while intoxicated, discharging a firearm in city limits, negligent assault, and obstructing official police business.

That same afternoon, Norbert is released from jail only to find out he’s been fired from his brand new job. "He obviously doesn’t fit our criteria of an employee of this department," said the boss’s spokesman.

Who is the boss? The Sheriff of Hamilton County where Norbert is employed as a correctional officer in the county jail — the same place where he’s just been an inmate.

Norbert says he plans to appeal his firing to the sheriff. "Hey, I don’t want to lose my job," says Norbert. He says he’d like to have his job back, but he won’t fight it if that’s what the sheriff wants.

Norbert should remember that all sworn personnel work, according to state law, "at the pleasure of the sheriff." In this case, Norbert provided plenty of "displeasure" for the sheriff.

Norbert said he wasn’t really drunk. He’d only had four beers celebrating his graduation from the academy.

Norbert may also have had one of the shortest careers in law enforcement history. He was graduated from the Corrections Academy Tuesday afternoon and was fired some 10 hours later.