Today, push-ups begin to concern me a little bit. The push-up is something that I have never bothered to master, having settled for the lame, easy way out in most of my high school gym classes and doing about thirty awesome push-ups from the knees. (It also helped that Coach Brown counted them off at about 60 miles per hour, so by the time he reached five, you could only be on about your third one.)
But now, I want to be a police officer. Again, that's one of the oddest things in the world to me, because never in my life would I have expected to have such an interest in pursuing law enforcement as a career. Five years ago, if you would have told me that I'd be getting serious about being a police officer, I would have told you that you were smoking some seriously good stuff.
As I began grasping at the straws for something meaningful to do with my life, a combination of things happened: I was rejected for a Dispatcher's position at the University of Iowa Police Department and I found my ambition. (Or at least the first faint hints of it. It's still sprouting.) My interview for the dispatching position went well, but it became clear that they already had someone in mind for the job. However, I was taken on a tour and asked probing questions about whether or not I had considered becoming an officer. Having seen the shiny, new department that the University has, I began thinking about it.
The more I thought about it and the more I tried the notion on for size in my head, the more it made sense- and crazily enough, it didn't scare me or make me want to run away.
Some law enforcement experience could be parlayed into moving up the ladder to federal law enforcement or at least have a steady job while Ali gets her dreams locked into place. After that, I could keep at it, move up the ladder a little bit or even step sideways to get a PHD or teaching certification and do some teaching and research. (And maybe, after that, I can go for my MFA in Creative Writing and spend my twilight years surrounded by hordes of grandchildren and retire to Arizona where I'll write book after book after book until I drop dead at the ripe old age of 150. Or something like that.)
All of this brings us back to the matter of push-ups. The Iowa Law Enforcement Academy mandates that all their candidates past what's called a POST Test before they advance on in the interview process- 29 push-ups and 38 sit ups in one minute, a 16.5 inch sit and reach and a mile and a half run in 12 minutes and 51 seconds. The sit-ups I could probably handle and with some judicious dieting combined with running on the treadmill every day I hope to get down to the 12 minutes and 51 seconds.
But push-ups, well... they're coming along- and I can actually physically bend my arms in the proper push-up positions which is a massive achievement for me- but now, apparently I have to get my chest down to the height of a fist (which is going to be placed under my chest while doing push-ups.)
Uh-oh. They are coming along, but this is a new twist and a new challenge. But all this testing should be good practice- and maybe I'll start passing some of these tests and maybe get a job other than TLCA. (Plus, I pretty much have ever other Friday off for a month. Maybe more if I'm lucky.)
Slowly but surely, I'll get there and soon I'll be doing the perfect push-ups.
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