Well, the day has finally arrived... the world is either a little safer or a little more dangerous, depending on your point of view. I was reviewing my extracurricular "worst-case scenario" training to date (all sorts of things like small arms, penal code 832, tear gas...) and doing some checks against the laws and rules of various states in the US, and I've come to a startling conclusion.

I now can legally act as a fully qualified freelance bail fugitive recovery agent in the states of New York, Ohio, Tennessee, and Montana. "Bail fugitive recovery agent" is the official legal term for what people refer to as a "bounty hunter."

You probably don't need me to tell you that it would be a good idea to move if you live in one of those four states I just mentioned. If the law allows a freelance vigilante like me to run around your state with a stun gun and handcuffs in pursuit of justice, I would sure as hell think it high time to consider a change in scenery.

This will undoubted irk my family to no end, since they are always afraid I'm going to end up doing something dangerous and get myself killed. It's even worse when you consider that the majority of my family still live in my home town, which is located in upstate New York (which, as you can note from my little list above, falls within "freelance bounty hunter" territory). On the bright side, though, I could quite easily make a decent living by just visiting my parents on occasion and then swinging by the local trailer park and bringing my ex-high school classmates to justice.

Last I heard, most of them peaked in their senior year of high school and still live in my home town. And only about half of them have been arrested at one point or another for "domestic disturbances". While kicking in doors at the trailer park for $300 a pop doesn't sound like the healthiest way to make a living, I can at least take comfort in the fact that I'm giving something back to my old community.

I can also take great satisfaction in stunning and then handcuffing the wife-smacking ex-star center of the football team that decided it would be a great idea to give me a wedgie and hang me on a showerhead in the locker room when I was a high school freshman back in 1993.

Oh, and for the folks living in Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oregon, or Wisconsin, you can rest easy... freelance bounty hunting is illegal in your state.