Near where we live, there is a police academy (no Steve Guttenberg jokes please. Wait. *Are* there any Steve Guttenberg jokes? Is that guy even funny?). It’s not uncommon to see the recruits jogging about in the morning, or at the corner store, buying chips and toilet paper, in their dark blue uniforms replete with plastic guns in the holsters. It’s fine, they’re fine, whatever. All winter, they were actually sort of a pleasure to have around – they kept certain areas of the park well-shoveled and were very helpful if people needed help pushing their cars out of a snowbank. Not that that ever happened to us. It DIDN’T!

But now?

Now I wish they would just graduate and go the heck home. Why? Because once Spring comes, the recruits, they start practicing… well, basically driving back and forth, with the sirens and lights blaring. I suppose it’s something they have to do, but they practice it about a mile behind my house, on the old airfield. And it looks (and sounds) like this:

It’s currently 9:15 pm. This has been going on since approximately 6 pm. And will continue until 10 pm, or a bit later. They do this at least once a week. Some weeks, 2 or 3 times. Always at night. Always 6 or 7 cars, sirens blaring, driving back and forth, back and forth, for hours. What you saw there was 21 seconds. Imagine at least 4 hours of it. Constantly. They. Don’t. Stop.

I realize that 9:15 isn’t extremely late, but this is my bedtime. And I know there are people on my street who have young children, who might be trying to sleep right now. Yes, we’ve complained to the property manager, and to the police academy, but they haven’t done anything at all… they can’t really, as long as they quiet down by 10. And usually, they do… although last week it was past 10:30 by the time they finally cut it out. But I mean, what are we supposed to do about it? Call the police on them?

Heh.

(No, not moving. Aside from the month of the year where this goes on, I love the location of our house)