Wrapping one hand around the fugitive condiment, I pushed my glasses up onto my nose with the other and continued to kneel there, staring at the object. The gratuitous trinket section was positioned immediately across from the coffee; probably some marketing guru’s brilliant idea for how they could move high-profit-margin, cheap plastic toys by catching junior’s attention while the parent was getting a cup of java. I had no doubt that it was effective to some extent because it now had my undivided attention.

Of course, I was focused on a particular item. Dead in the middle of all of the junk was a peg which held several blister cards, each of them containing a toy police badge, whistle, and plastic handcuffs. Ben’s earlier comment rolled through my foggy brain, “You ain’t packin’ a badge, so you’re just another civilian ta’ them.”

He was correct. But now, like some fateful sign, here was a badge, and it even looked pretty convincing given the short distance between it and me. It wouldn’t stand up to any manner of scrutiny, that much was for certain, but if it was just a quick flash it might work.

“Ya’ okay over dere, cap?” the man called out.

“Yeah,” I answered and, realizing I’d been staring at the toy just a bit too long, offered up an explanation. “I just dropped a creamer, and I didn’t want to leave a mess over here for you to have to deal with.”

“Dere ya’ go,” he replied, a thankful note in his voice.

I sighed and looked away from the toy rack then muttered a personal admonishment under my breath as I stood, “Yeah Gant, impersonating a cop. That’d be really bright, wouldn’t it?”

Stepping back over to the low counter, I finished adding the creamers to the cup then poured in the just finished coffee on top. I was happy to see that it blended to a milky brown instead of the sickly grey I’d faced before at other such establishments.