The good, the bad and the ugly

Since crafting last week's blog reduced me to tears I've decided to turn to a safer topic. So this week's post is devoted to what I know best -- writing.
Specifically, I've been thinking about how much cops and writers have in common. Basically we are all students of human behavior. The only difference is that while the police use their powers of observation to fight crime, authors use ours to craft the plot, characters and all of the other elements that make for good stories.
At the risk of sounding immodest, I've always been pretty observant and a fairly good judge of character (at least until I met my ex-husband.) But truth be told, I learned more about human nature than I ever dreamed possible while working as a journalist covering law enforcement.
I learned how to read people. I learned what drives the good guys and what makes bad guys tick. I learned that good people sometimes do bad things, that the strongest people sometimes have the greatest weaknesses, and that predators don't thrive without prey.
Covering my share of murder and mayhem also provided me with plenty of fodder for true crime stories and enough inspiration for at least a dozen novels. In fact, I've probably documented more courtroom drama than most people will see in 10,000 episodes of Law and Order.
But yesterday, I found another source of inspiration as I watched a seemingly far less sinister scene unfold right outside my door.
A hooded man was extricating his van from a snow and ice-packed parking space on a snow emergency route. As he did, heaping shovelfuls of debris landed in the road, creating hazardous conditions and causing traffic to veer into the wrong lane.
There's never a cop around when you need one, I thought as I considered dialing my local police department's non-emergency number to report the activity. Oh, screw it. They've got better things to do. I'll just put this guy in a book some day... or at least I'll put him in my blog.
Until next time, "That's life..."