"She didn't reckon with the awesome power of the Chief of Police. Now where did I put my badge? Hey, that duck's got it."

We were at Freebirds on South Congress for a little sustenance earlier this afternoon. We’d been running errands, dealing with broken down cars and picking up friends at the airport. Needless to say, we were a bit exhausted and our vision was a little blurry. That’s probably why we didn’t trust our eyes when we first walked into the almost-empty establishment and saw a handgun sitting on a table. An unsupervised handgun. After a double take, we saw that sitting next to the gun was a badge. An APD badge. Not a cop in sight.

D'OH!

Management immediately called 311 and reported the weapon, left minutes earlier by a rather distracted cop. An officer was dispatched to the scene and the weapon was received. Also received was a tongue-lashing from the absent-minded cop’s superior.

Unfortunately, we did not catch the name of the officer. But we think it might have been Hightower or Tackleberry.