2002-09-18 | 4:50 p.m.

corduroy licorice did things by force of habit. the nuns at his catholic school had been strict teachers.

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they've got all these chicken soup for the soul books and all of these ...for dummies books...

....so why don't they have a chicken soup for dummies book?

(i'd like to think that joke was more jerry seinfeld than andy rooney.)

***

i never told you the story of going to look at mug shots at the police station to see if i could identify my would-be mugger. i met the detective at his office and he took me into a room with a two-way mirror. he brought in color copies with six mugs on a page. he called them "six packs," in case you're looking for some station house lingo.

he had done a search based on the distinguishing marks that i had mentioned to pick the six-packers, but none of them was my offender. then i went through two fat albums narrowed down by race and age with about 200 shots in each book. i kept thinking, "boy, there are a lot of bad guys out there." the arrest dates went back to 1995, so not all of the faces were fresh hoodlums. no sight of my guy.

i even covered their mouths with my finger to simulate what he looked like with his scarf over the bottom part of his face. some of the guys were hot and some looked like good boys, which made me realize that i could meet any of these people at a club or party and not know that they had priors. eesh.

when i was done combing through the albums, i interrupted the chatting desk chicks to let them know i was finished.

"your lady's done!" one of them hollered to my public dick. he came out and shook my hand and told me that he'd let me know if anything came up. in a strange way, i was almost relieved not to have found the guy. i imagined going to trial and having to identify him there. if he was a gang member, maybe one of his homies would try to ice me with his gat before i could dime on the perp. that'd be illin', for real.

the night before my mug shot morning, i had a dream that i was in the station looking at shots and found him. only it wasn't a head shot. it was a picture of him with two little boys and a little girl all dressed for church in crisp white and black sunday clothes.

i guess liberal guilt ain't just a river in egypt.

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