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Well, one time we got called out by some detectives who thought they saw drugs (a white powdery substance) in a plastic baggie in an unoccupied parked car. The car was parked in an apartment parking lot. They had run a criminal history on the registered owner, and he had no criminal background.They had also called the state's attorney for advice before they called me. The SA told them they did not have probable cause for a warrant, much less the exigency to slim-jim the car to seize the baggie. The SA suggested they call out a K9 to see if the dog would alert to the car containing the “drugs”.So they called my partner (police K9 Bach) and I to the scene.When we got there the two dicks (slang for detective) showed me the car containing the suspected drugs. I saw the baggie too, sitting in plain view on the center console.I told the dicks I would have the dog search a couple other cars first, so that it could not be said that I targeted the dog to alert on a specific vehicle.So I told the dicks I would start the dog sniffing the exterior of their unmarked squad car. (A presumably “clean” vehicle.)Bach alerted (rather aggressively) to the odor of narcotics at the back door of the presumably clean unmarked squad car.I assumed this was a false alert on Bach's part. I let slip a few derogatory comments about my partner's intelligence, but he persisted in alerting to the back door of the squad car.The two dicks assured me there were absolutely no narcotics in their squad car, as Bach continued to scratch at the back door.So I instructed one of them to open the back door so Bach could search the back seat area and be satisfied there were no drugs there.When the door was opened, Bach immediately jumped into the back seat, stuffed his face into the crack between the horizontal and vertical sections, and pulled out a clear plastic baggie containing a good quantity of marijuana. Bach had the dog equivalent of a grin on his face as the baggie dangled from his canine teeth.I looked at the dicks. The dicks looked at each other. Bach smiled at all of us. He was thinking, “Dominant species on the planet indeed,” I think.So, putting 2 + 2 together, the dicks had to admit they had failed to conduct a thorough search of their last prisoner. And I was obliged to buy Bach a Quarterpounder with cheese, and to document the incident in departmental and K9 training reports.And the car with the supposed drugs in plain view? Bach did not alert to that car. Turned out the baggie contained laundry detergent, as was confirmed when the registered owner pulled up in another vehicle and gladly open the car for the dicks.So. That was unexpected.

Ooh…I have a list.One sub read a newspaper while students “worked.” I had to come back for something, and the sub was leaned back in the chair, with feet up on my desk, reading a fully opened paper. He couldn’t even see the students. The same sub had let a group of 1st period students eat the still life fruit arrangement a teacher had set up for her classes to draw.Another told my class the video they were supposed to watch was “boring,” so they would watch basketball instead. The video was the film adaptation of The Agony and the Ecstasy, and we were learning about Michelangelo and the Italian Renaissance. He argued that he should not be subjected to boring content.Yet another let a class play with stuff in my classroom (like my globe), which they broke, and then instructed them to lie about what happened. Then, told another group of students that there were “snitches” in my class when he was called on it.This is the worst: I had a long-term sub when I was out for maternity leave with my twins. She allowed some of the art students to break down the airbrush booths to build a “love shack” in the back of the art room. To fill in any gaps/space, they used my art history and culture books. They had also covered the room with signs advertising marijuana, and there was graffiti on the blackboard and chairs. When I questioned this, she said that it wasn’t her problem, and the children were “demon-spawn.” I couldn’t do anything about the students, because I couldn’t say who had or hadn’t done anything. I did make it clear she would not be welcome in my room again.Most subs I have had have been wonderful, and over twenty years of teaching this is the worst I have encountered, so I guess that’s not too bad.

My first day. I showed up for my first clinical and met the ambulance in the hospital parking lot. The paramedic showed me how to check out the truck and the basic EMT driver gave us shit the entire time. He was a wiry, little guy that reminded me of a long haired chihuahua on meth. He stood outside the box, or back of the truck, chain smoking. He told me about a common superstition. He said that your first ambulance call dictated what your career was going to be like. His was a suicide. He was betting mine would be a transfer. He kept smoking and walking around the back of the truck until the paramedic told him to shut the F— up and check out the cab of the ambulance. I was a little freaked. I was only 19 years old and was pretty nervous already. I was surprised to see the conflict between the crew members. I had never been in the back of an ambulance before. I never even heard this superstition before. Now, I was wondering what my first call would be.I didn’t have to wait long. We got our first call of the day. It was an accident with injury on a bridge close to the hospital. I rode in the back of the ambulance to the call and I could hear the paramedic and EMT fighting in the cab through the tiny window. When we arrived, the paramedic opened the side door and told me to stay with him. The EMT looked at me when I got out and said “this shit is bad man.” There was a guy sitting in the ground, smoking a cigarette. The EMT confronted him while the paramedic and I went to a crushed compact car. We found a guy, covered in blood in the driver’s seat. There was a nurse in the back seat holding his head. They were both impossibly pale. She told us this guy was a pharmacist that she worked with at the hospital we just left. They had just gotten off a night shift and a drunk driver hit him head on. She stopped to help and discovered it was a friend of hers from work. She was freaking out.We worked feverishly to get him out of the front seat. He arrested as we got him out and into the cot. I was instructed to start CPR. The EMT was screaming at the guy on the ground who was smoking. He was cursing at him and calling him names. This was the drunk driver who had just killed this pharmacist. The EMT came over to the truck while we were loading up and told us that the other guy would be going to jail and not the hospital. He went back to the other driver with a piece of release paperwork to sign. We loaded the patient into the back of the truck and the paramedic got an airway and started an IV. Finally, the EMT returned to the truck. The paramedic screamed at him to get in and drive. We were thrown all over the back as we made our way back to the pharmacist’s work place. We unloaded him and I rode on the cot, doing CPR all the way to the ER trauma bay. We left a trail of dilute blood all along the hall. The trauma team moved him over to a bed and we were suddenly dismissed. It was a strange experience to be completely involved in the care of this man and then suddenly not be.He died.Back in the parking lot, by the ambulance the EMT paced and smoked. He was extremely agitated. He was screaming and throwing cigarette butts. The paramedic confronted him and intitiated an argument about his behavior at the scene. It escalated quickly. I thought they were going to fight when the EMT suddenly walked away. I helped the paramedic clean all the blood out of the truck and the next time I saw the EMT he was in the cab of a supervisor’s truck driving away. He looked hollow. There wasn’t any animating energy left in him. He seemed broken. I assumed that the paramedic reported him and that he was in trouble. I found out later that he had quit his job right on the spot.The supervisor brought a replacement EMT driver and we went about our shift. It was my first call and now that I look back on my 9 year career in EMS and all the calls I ran, I have to say that maybe that burned out EMT had a point. Maybe this did set the tone for my emergency medicine career.