Johannes Lichtman at The Paris Review:
I pulled up to the gate, and an aggressive police officer questioned me about why I had two badges.
“Didn’t it seem strange to you to get a second badge when you’d just got your first one?”
“I’ve never been here before,” I said. “Everything seems strange to me.”
A different cop told him to give it a rest, handed me a third badge
...
When I later told Vivian about the mean cop and the nice one, she said, “They’re always doing that good cop–bad cop thing.”
...
The Starbucks at Langley is the only Starbucks where baristas aren’t allowed to ask for your name.