Tag Archive for: feral animals

It’s four in the morning and fatigue is tugging hard on your eyelids. It’s a subtle move, like grasping the string on one of your grandmother’s window shades, slowly pulling it down. The move, so gracefully executed by the Sand Man, is such that you hardly notice it.

Thinking about your family asleep in their warm beds, you turn onto a side street trying and hoping to find a place to pull over. Five minutes. That’s all you need.

Shouldn’t have spent those three hours today playing with the kids when you could’ve been sleeping. Still, that’s the only time you could spare. Otherwise you’d never see them while they’re awake.

And, someone had to mow the lawn this afternoon, right? And repair the washer and fix the flat on the wife’s car. Oh yeah, tomorrow is the day you’re supposed to speak about police officers to your third-grader’s class. It won’t take long, two or three hours at the most. Of course, there’s the lunch in the cafeteria with your kid. Sigh …

Sleep. You need sleep

Your headlights wash over the back of the alley as feral dogs and cats scramble out of the dumpster that sits like an old and tired dinosaur behind Lula Mae’s Bakery. The knot of hungry animals scatter loaves of two-day-old bread in their haste to escape the human intruder who dared to meddle with their nocturnal feeding.

A mutt with three legs and matted fur hobbles behind a rusty air conditioning unit, dragging a long, dirty paper bag half-filled with crumbled bagels that spill and leave a trail of stale nuggets in its wake. Tendrils of steam rise slowly from storm drains; ghostly, sinewy figures melting into the black sky. A train whistle moans in the distance.

The night air is damp with fog, dew, and city sweat that reeks of gasoline and sour garbage. Mannequins stare out from tombs of storefront glass, waiting for daylight to take away the flashing neon lights that reflect from their plaster skin.

You park at the rear of the alley, stopping next to a stack of flattened cardboard boxes, their labels reflecting someone’s life for the week—chicken, lettuce, disposable diapers, and cheap wine.

Four more hours. If you could only make it for four more hours …

Suddenly, a voice spews from the speaker behind your head, “Shots fired. Respond to 1313 Mockingbird Lane. Back up is en route.”

“10-4. I’m 10-8. ETA … four minutes.”

And so it goes.

And goes and goes and goes …


Were Dead Ringers Saved by the Bell?

It’s believed by some that the graveyard shift (not this blog) got its name from people who accidentally buried their loved ones while they were still alive. Thinking their dearly departed had gone on to their reward, these folks unknowingly fitted a barely breathing, unconscious or comatose Uncle Bill or Grandma with a new outfit and a spiffy pine box.

Then they buried them in the local cemetery where night workers claimed to sometimes hear the dead screaming for help from below the ground. When they dug up the suspicious coffins, they sometimes discovered scrapes and scratches on the insides of casket lids, an indication that perhaps the people inside had tried to claw their way out before finally succumbing to a lack of oxygen.

To remedy the situation, caskets were fitted with a bell, and a long string that reached from the surface to the inside of the buried coffin. This enabled the “dead” person to ring the bell should he awaken after his burial. Workers could then quickly rescue the living dead.

It’s debatable as to the validity of this tale, but it makes for an interesting story, especially for police officers who have cemeteries to patrol in their precincts.


Is Working Graveyard Shift Hazardous to Your Health?

Working the midnight shift is difficult for anyone. In fact, Circadian Technologies, Lexington, Massachusetts consultancy firm, conducted a study that showed companies operating a graveyard shift may be losing approximatel $206 billion dollars annually. Why? Because workers are simply not effective when working these late-night hours.

The study also showed a higher divorce rate among midnight shift workers, more gastrointestinal problems, higher stress related disorders, and a higher accident rate. The study also concluded that there’s a much higher turnover rate among night-shift employees.

A Hutchinson Group (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) study reports that women who work the graveyard shift may have a greater risk of breast cancer. The results of this study were first introduced in a 2001 Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Anyway, working the graveyard shift is a tough assignment no matter how you look at it. So tonight, when the clock strikes twelve, please take a moment to think about all the people across the country who are out there working hard to protect us and our property so that we may sleep safely. And, there are also the folks who work nightshift in factories, convenience stores, shipyards, hospitals, EMS services, firefighters, and many more.