Cop brain can be a great thing while you’re on duty, but it can make you look pretty silly while you’re not on the job.
Check out the list of 5 symptoms and see if you have this unique condition:
1. The Case of the Invisible Radio
After wearing a microphone that’s attached to a portable radio for countless hours while on duty, it easily becomes like second nature to tilt your head in the direction of the mic to hear what’s being said. It is a normal behavior that you’ll do while you are on the clock and actually is wearing the lapel mic on, but if you’ve ever done this when you aren’t in uniform, you’re bound to get a few odd stares.
2. The License Plate Game: Cop Edition
Like other cops who are patrolling in between calls, you might pay attention to the license plates you see in your general area. You might be looking for equipment violations or expired tags, and sometimes you might even say the plate number aloud. This isn’t so bad when you’re alone, but if you do this with the family or someone else in the car, they might get annoyed after a while.
3. Sharing the Cop Defensive Skills
Cops deal with people that aren’t always the most cooperative, so they’ll have to lay the smack down on those unruly bad guys from time to time. If your young child can drive their bony little thumb into the mandibular angle of a classmate because you’ve shared this wealth of information with him, you probably have cop brain. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but just remember, it’s all fun and games until your kid uses it to get back at the other kid who took the crayon they wanted to use.
4. Counting the Beans
It’s pretty common knowledge that American’s love a good action movie, especially when it has some sort of gun fight in the plot. If before you were a cop, you enjoyed these without any sort of analysis but now you find yourself counting the rounds fired and calling BS when a magazine change would be needed but the Hollywood firearms seem to have an infinite capacity, welcome aboard. You get extra bonus points if you insist on pointing out the inaccuracies with those around you in the theater during the movie.
5. Been There and Heard it All Before
If someone starts a story with “you’ll never believe what happened at/when” and you secretly think “nothing you say will surprise me,” it’s your cop brain at work. Cops see it all. Humans are unpredictable creatures and cops get paid to wade into the shallow end of the gene pool on a regular basis. They have to keep themselves open to the possibility that something ridiculous is possible.