Ever wondered, what’s the largest living creature the police in America (not including Alaska) have tased?

Do not include any large relatives you may have unless they are bigger than a camel.

Which pretty much leaves us with . . . a camel. Once used in the American Southwest instead of horses (that whole waterless desert thing), camels are shockingly no longer commonplace in America.

Except in Kiln, Miss. where when you spy a fugitive camel, it belongs to the only person in town, Ms. Donna . . . ‘Smith’, who owns one.

Ms. Nedra . . . ‘Jones’ spots the fugitive and being neighborly pulls into Donna’s driveway to say, “Hey girl, did you know your camel’s loose?”

Nedra no sooner parks the car when the camel “attacks” her red Nissan. Why it is newsworthy that it was a red Nissan, I don’t know. Perhaps the camel has a known aversion to red, or perhaps to Japanese cars. Probably if she’d been driving a green Ford pickup she’d been fine.

The camel attacks; Ms. Nedra freaks out and goes into ‘possum mode.’ Not exactly playing dead, but a reasonable imitation wherein she fails to remember that the camel has no thumbs and, therefore, cannot open her car door. Neither does Ms. Nedra realize her fully functional car can go in reverse and she can back out of the driveway. Believing she is trapped, she calls 911 for back up.

Deputy Ed . . . ‘Brown’ arrives, exits his vehicle and approaches the angry camel.

Now a footnote: my forebears were Balkan camel wranglers and my Grandfather once told me, “Baba, if you’re going to approach an angry camel, first don’t do it, but if you have to, go with great confidence that you are the master and the camel is the beast.” I was five, but it still sounds like good advice to me.

Unfortunately Deputy Ed had no prior camel experience. I’m thinking he lacked that “great confidence” element and showed it. Anyway, he tries running the camel off.

Ed’s official report states, “the animal was not complying with my commands.” Really? It’s a camel. I don’t think it knew it was being commanded.

Deputy Ed yelling, “Get away from the car, do it now!” meant zip.

You know, I think I would’ve had the station call Nedra and tell her to back the car out of the yard. But that’s just me.

When the camel wouldn’t do as Ed commanded, and it came towards him Ed tased the beast. We’ve all seen what happens when a suspect gets tased on “Cops.” Imagine a jiggly camel, hump flipping around, big old camel eyes popping out, crashing to the ground in spasms. You think Mr. Camel was irate BEFORE Ed got there?

I’m not sure who was luckier, Ed or the camel. The camel didn’t get up and beat the crap out of Ed. Ed was not forced to confront the logistical problems of arrest. There was no “up against the wall, feet back, spread ‘em” situation. No trying to squeeze a camel into the back of the squad car. Although Ed, and Nedra’s red car scared the excrement out of the camel, the camel scared Ed and Nedra senseless.

Updates: the camel has a phobia about leaving its yard, Ed is writing the police department’s SOPs on camels and Nedra’s Nissan stalls whenever it gets close to the camel’s neighborhood. Overall a valuable lesson was learned by all . . . what it is I’m still trying to figure out.

Cohea, a freelance writer, can be reached by e-mailing a37_tao@hotmail.com.