I was patrolling Spring Creek Parkway after midnight. It was a 4-lane divided roadway with no houses or businesses in the far NW corner of Plano. There was no reason for traffic at that hour, but I could see a car weaving and jerking over a half mile ahead. I punched the gas to catch up.
As I was reaching to turn on the red lights and siren, the car swerved into a subdivision that had only streets, no houses yet. I sped past the entrance and turned off my headlights. By the light of the moon, I made a U-turn at the next break in the median and cruised slowly back to the subdivision, using my emergency brake so no brake lights would give me away.
I idled into the subdivision, expecting to catch teenagers having a booze or dope party. I spotted a parked car blacked out and approached from the rear, still using only the engine idle and being careful not to allow any lights from my squad car to betray my presence. I stopped about fifty feet behind the vehicle.
I silently exited the patrol vehicle and crept up next to the driver’s side. The driver’s door window was open and I could hear a slurping sound. As I got even with the window, I turned my powerful flashlight on, pointed at the occupant in the driver’s seat.
A morbidly obese man was leaning forward, holding a huge bowl and sucking straight out of it. His head jerked up in shock and he turned to look at me, his face a dripping mess of chili.
“What in the world are you doing?” I asked.
He immediately started sobbing. “Please don’t tell my wife,” he begged, his chest heaving. “I promised her I would give up chili. But I was craving a bowl of Wendy’s chili. I waited until she was asleep and snuck out. I just had to have some chili.”
I gawked in disbelief at this pathetic man, sobbing and crying because he had been caught breaking his diet. Lacking utensils, he was slurping the chili with his face pressed into the bowl.
Through his sobs, he implored, “Please don’t tell my wife I’m cheating on my diet, officer. Please don’t tell her.”
It took me a few seconds to recover my own wits and not break out laughing. “Okay, I said, I will keep your secret this time. But you must promise me one thing. Next time you need a chili fix, you will wait until you park before you start slurping that stuff down. You were all over the road back there, trying to suck that stuff out of the bowl while driving. Can you promise me you will wait until you are parked next time?”
“Oh, yes, officer, thank you,” he blurted as the sobbing slowed.
“Okay, then,” I said, “I’ll leave to finish your chili and clean up before you go home, and I won’t tell your wife this time. But remember, next time, park before you dive into that bowl.”
Cops see some strange stuff out there, believe me.