Those Aren't My Pants

Those Aren’t My Pants, Officer is a collection of true stories from the street—told by a police officer who learned, one call at a time, that the job doesn’t just change how you see other people. It changes how you see yourself.

Some of these stories are funny. Some are unsettling. Many are both at the same time.

There are moments of absurdity that could only happen at three in the morning, encounters that defy explanation, and situations so ridiculous they almost feel scripted—until you remember they weren’t. But threaded through the humor is the quieter reality of the work: the constant exposure to danger, grief, cruelty, and moral ambiguity, and the cumulative weight that comes with carrying responsibility for other people’s worst days.

This is not a hero narrative, and it is not a polemic. It’s an honest account of what it’s like to live inside the job—how gallows humor becomes a survival tool, how cynicism creeps in unnoticed, and how the line between vigilance and damage slowly blurs.

The book closes with reflection rather than punchlines. The author does not pretend the job left him untouched. It didn’t. What followed—years later—was reckoning, therapy, and a hard-earned return to faith and humanity.

Those Aren’t My Pants, Officer will resonate with:

• law enforcement officers and first responders,

• veterans and others shaped by high-stress professions,

• readers who appreciate dark humor grounded in lived experience,

• and anyone curious about the psychological cost of work that asks people to absorb chaos so others don’t have to.

Funny, uncomfortable, and ultimately human, this book isn’t about laughs for their own sake. It’s about what’s left after the laughter fades.

By John McFarland