S.O.S.

Or How I Came To Use This Acronym


For years I have used the acronym S.O.S. and many times I have had to tell the story to my kids and friends about how it came into my vocabulary.

It started back when I was a policeman in Sacramento.  It was a late evening call. I was working the night watch out of Central....  OK, no more Jack Webb sounding stuff, just couldn't help myself.

Another car and I received a disturbance call on a street by the name of Broadway, in a district known as Oak Park.

As I arrived at the call, I observed a young women standing on the front porch of the address with her arms folded across her chest, tapping her toe, obviously very agitated.  The good news was that it didn't look like there was a fight or disturbance still going on.

So I canceled the second unit, my back-up car, and advised my dispatcher that I was going to make contact with the lady, who was probably the complainant.  I walked up to the front porch where the lady was standing, and as I did, I had a few glances into her apartment.

Even after having been a cop for years, the sight that greeted me set me back.  The apartment was totally trashed.  The furniture was broken and over turned, items were strewn in every direction and there was even a hole in the screen of the television that was laying on the floor and still smoking. No TV bar-room fight had anything on the way that living room looked.   I could see now what she was so upset about.

I thought I would ask what happened and let her vent a little.  So the inevitable words came out of my mouth:  "What happened here?"  "My brother", she said.  I said,  "Your your brother did this to your house?"  "No", she said, "My brother brought Leroy over here, and every time he wrecks my joint".  "Every time?"  I said,  "You mean Leroy has done this to your place before?"   "Huh huh", she answered.  To which I asked, "What's the matter with your brother?"  And that's when she hit me with it.  "I'll tell you what's the matter with 'em, the Mother F----er is stuck on stupid, that's what".  Stuck on Stupid.  My brain immediately made an acronym out of it, S.O.S.   I tried not to laugh, and talked with the lady just a few more minutes before leaving because I couldn't wait to share this story with my team mates.

You guessed it, it stuck.  For years after that, we would have someone stopped and if the circumstances dictated...one of us would ask 'em, "Are you S.O.S.?" to describe whatever type of ridiculous behavior they were involved in.  Often times they would ask, "What's that mean?"  and we would share the acronym with them. More often than not, they would laugh and say something like,  "That's pretty funny".  And then they would go away, hopefully not S.O.S. again.