TIFU by offering drugs to a child in uniform
Obligatory not today. A couple of weeks ago I was working at a local festival with the police department as a volunteer. It's the same uniform, same equipment, identical to the local police except for a line on my shoulder patch and on my badge.
We were walking around chatting with vendors and giving kids stickers with the police department's badge on it that said "junior police officer". Kids love them and it's great for them to have those positive experiences with police.
One of the vendors had a bunch of chainsaw carvings, some of which were of Morels, which are a mushroom that grows in the spring and people like to hunt for. That got us on the topic of mushroom hunters, some that had been poisoned, how dangerous it can be, etc. The point here is we were talking about mushrooms, which is where the fuck up came in.
As we were walking, there was a kid and a parent coming in the opposite direction, as I reached for a sticker I asked the kid, "hey dude, you want some mushrooms"
I immediately realized what I said and started apologizing, fortunately the father had a sense of humor and shot off, "wrong festival, region non-specific drug centric festival is that way".
I apologized again and explained we were talking about mushrooms, we both had a laugh and parted ways. I'm still appalled by what I said, especially in that uniform.
Tl;dr: working for the local police department in uniform at a festival, was talking about mushrooms that were carved with a chainsaw, and when I tried to offer a kid a sticker I accidentally offered the kid mushrooms
*Some details were changed to keep my location vague*