I don't even want to know

Our trusty janitor approached me the other day with a large smile and the question of, "Guess what I just found in the arcade?"

This is not an inquiry that fills me with brimming optimism. I have neither sustained a sharp blow to the head nor am I currently persisting in a vegetative state in some forgotten corner of a hospital ward, therefore the janitor's conversational gambit fills me with a horrified trepidation. I know my fellow man. I understand how thin the veneer of civilization is that makes each individual and how swiftly it is discarded when they think no one is looking.

When taken in combination with the almost suicidal nosiness of our cleaning man, his cheerfulness only heightened my unease. Had he palmed a discarded syringe or broken crack pipe again? Did someone decide to anoint a room with something unwholesomely gooey and if so, I don't need to bear witness to the spectacle, he should know by now he's more than welcome to discretely clean it up. I don't dare to hope it is merely a dropped cell phone, pair of glasses, or otherwise harmless piece of personal property. He's too close-lipped for it to be a new bit of vandalism. I remind myself that if I club him to death with the credit card machine, someone else is going to have to take up the slack until we could get a new janitor on staff. Eminently not worth it.

I guardedly inform him I couldn't possibly hazard a guess.

Then he tosses a badge onto the counter.

I suppose I could wrap my brain around this discovery if it had been an official police shield, it's not outside the realm of possibility that an off-duty officer might stop off to unwind for a few minutes and in the process forgetting something extremely embarrassing for himself and the department. Not bloody likely, but stranger things have happened.

However, this was a cheap plastic toy. The writing on the face limited to the generic "PD" and surmounted with a cartoonish eagle. Our janitor flipped it over to reveal two spots of ragged black plastic where it used to attach to a larger toy before someone pried it loose.

I would ask what in the name of nougaty napalm a broken dime store toy was doing in one of my arcade booths, but I'm certain the answer would only bring more disquiet.