The cosmic shift in my life was to leave 25 years of lawyering for an uncertain future as a writer. It’s easy to forget that I had many other jobs which were much less fun than writing. Here’s number three of a series:

The RCMP hired law students for summer jobs, and I went through several rounds of interviews at Mountie headquarters in Toronto. My last meeting was a psychological exam that concluded with this exchange:

Psychologist: “Who do you love more, your father or your mother?”

Me: “I love them equally.”

Psychologist: “Yes, but, if you had to choose, you must love one more than the other, so who is it?”

Me: “I can’t choose. I love them the same.”

Psychologist: “Everyone loves one parent more than the other. Pick one.”

Me: “I don’t agree. I can’t pick one over the other.”

Psychologist: “OK. If you had a personal problem, and had to talk to someone about it, who would you go to, your mother or your father?”

Me: “Well, my dad is kind of quiet, and my mum is more of a talker, so I would probably go to my mum.”

Psychologist: “So, why do you hate your father?”

I passed the interview and was placed in the RCMP detachment in Hamilton, where my job was to help the officers investigate white collar crime. I suspect the main reason I was hired was to play shortstop on the Mountie softball team.

For two weeks I left the commercial crime unit to work undercover with the drug squad. This was mostly stakeouts drinking stale coffee, and sometimes drinking in bars where the drug dealers hung out. On one memorable occasion we executed a drug kingpin, I mean, we executed a search warrant at a ramshackle biker house in Hamilton’s industrial core. Owned by a drug kingpin. Entering that slum, I was the only Mountie without a gun, which was not confidence-building. The living room décor consisted of discarded motorcycle parts and a Harley-Davidson flag nailed to the wall which said, “Live To Ride, Ride To Live.” A wailing two-year-old wearing a shirt but not pants or a diaper waddled around with dried shit on his backside. The owner of the house wore a stretched black t-shirt which displayed biceps much larger than my thighs. I nervously searched the basement where a bench press held 350 pounds. I entered and quickly left a  small washroom with a malfunctioning toilet; the toilet’s disrepair had not prevented the residents from using it as an outhouse for perhaps several months. I didn’t find any drugs, but our search was successful as one Mountie found several kilos of cocaine hidden in the soiled contents of the diaper pail.

What weird job have you had?