Why You Drive to the Next County to Go to Target: On Never Feeling Off-Duty in Your Own Jurisdiction

It's not really about the store. It's about what happens when you try to exist as a civilian in the same geography where you work — the automatic threat assessments, the recognitions that put you back on the job, the low-level vigilance that doesn't turn off because the environment that requires it hasn't changed. Driving to the next county is a rational adaptation to a real condition. Here's what that condition actually is, and what to do when the adaptation starts costing more than it's worth.