Recently I stumbled across a series online, The FBI Files. It's a fact-based show that, through re-enactment and interviews with the actual agents involved, highlights some of their toughest cases, some of which remain unsolved.
Great, I thought. What better place to get some inspiration to help with my mission, while also providing me with the know-how to avoid detection and suspicion.
Well, that was the theory, until I realised what a complete bunch of bozos they were.
Apart from stories about J Edgar Hoover, my only connection to the FBI came through the crime drama I watched on TV.
They always came across as this elite crop of cops, hand-picked from the ranks and sent off to the mystical world of Quantico to be trained in all manner of highly specialised skills - emerging some time later as almost god-like characters with the stealth and skill of ninjas combined with the brains of Einstein. Figures to be feared and revered.
Turns out they are just plain-clothed cops with the authority to cross state lines.
I never thought a real-life crime show could be the source of so much laughter.
These "crack agents", some barely able to string grammatically correct sentences together, recounting in that overly dramatic style that Americans seem to specialise in, how when they saw the victim had 47 stab wounds they expertly deduced the weapon was a knife.
The best one was when an agent, upon discovering a headless body, ascertained that a decapitation had taken place and he could rule out suicide.
In other episodes they hammer home that when dealing in missing persons and kidnap cases just how crucial the first 24 hours are - yet their own policy is to not even act on such reports until after 24 hours. It's just bizarre.
Each one-hour episode is a virtual comedy of errors that actually highlights how little the FBI contributes to the solving of crime.
Time after time they come up with dead ends. The only time they get a break in a case is when science steps in or Joe Public gives them a tip that finally sets them off in the right direction - it's rarely as a result of the agents' efforts.
They are so hampered by their own systems, with some states having so many different types of law enforcement - state police, county sherrifs, rangers, troopers, and none of them linked. It's pure chaos.
It's the cause of crime, this failure to communicate from state to state. It's why serial killers like Bundy went undetected for so long - they crossed state lines. He was stopped by police so often for other offences but because they didn't talk to each other he "went under the radar". In normal cases, calling in the FBI is a last resort.
On the TV dramas we're treated to thrilling foot chases, the effortless leaping of fences and scaling of walls by well-dressed physical specimens of fitness.
To date, most of the agents I have seen on The FBI Files resemble Teletubbies struggling just to get out of their vee-hickles. ... obese, out-of-shape officers, seriously pondering on camera how the suspect was able to elude them on foot.
Then there's the epic grid searches, looking for a body and/or evidence, their numbers bolstered heavily by members of the public - thank goodness. The chunky crime fighters breathlessly bringing up the rear while helicopters fly overhead. Though there to aid the search, it wouldn't surprise me if they also do regular donut drops in an attempt to keep their sugar and energy levels up or swoop down to airlift the exhausted to the nearest hospital.
"Officer down, officer down - I need fried chicken smelling salts, stat."
Any wonder the only thing ballooning faster than the agents waistline is the crime rate.
I came for ideas and inspiration and left with a new, albeit unintended, favourite comedy - what I once believed to be an elite force has now become more of a farce.
It's also ruined future crime drama viewing for me, which will have to re-classified as fantasy.
My only hope now is to make the lifeforms watch The FBI Files ... maybe they'll die laughing. I'll keep you posted. investik8@gmail.com
Kate Stewart is an unemployed, reluctant mother of three, currently running amok in the city with a badge and gun saying "Make my day."
