My friend, Reza, is a translator in Farsi and invited me to accompany him today to the local Court house where attended to translate for a client. We both erroneously assumed it would take about ten minutes of contact as opposed to the 2 hours it did take. I had planned to go for a walk while he did his job and returned to find him still in the court-house, still with his keys to the car. So I leaned against the bonnet of the car and watched the local wildlife.
I actually was deeply sorry I hadn’t gone into the court with Rez as I suspect it would have made a fantastic Talk of the Town. As it was, watching the people leave the court-house was entertaining enough. Firstly I think if I were to go to court I would wear a suit and possibly comb my hair. I don’t think I would be too surprised if I was found guilty after presenting to the court wearing a fluorescent pink track suit over an electric blue too-short-to-cover-my-entire-belly t-shirt.
Problem solving capacity is clearly lost on these people. A denim mini skirted ‘lady’ was confronted by some plastic stuck underneath her car and causing an ungodly noise as she drove out of the car park. Her solution was to get out of the car and scream at it. For five minutes. Amazingly it didn’t spontaneously remove itself.
One man came out and was clearly happy with his case. He came out and did an impressive moonwalk. Unfortunately he was about 600 pounds larger than Michael Jackson but full marks for effort. Very happy, he was.
Which was more than could be said for the next man who came out of the court-house. He came out the door, turned around at the court-house and screamed ” You f***ing c***s can go f*** yourself. You don’t get to f*** with me.” The doors of the court house didn’t appear to care. Presumably he had been told he needed to attend anger management classes. The man was built like a truck, as solid as I, except all muscles. Covered in tattoos. Shaved head. He then got into his car and very angrily pulled out of the car park at a rate of knots. Right into Reza’s car.
He pulls back and gets out and unleashes further expletives at the car and at me, his witness and the reason he can’t run off. I go to get info off him and ask him, sweet as pie, for his details and he threatens to “***ing hand me my head if I don’t back off.”
And this is who I am now. I was bored. His threats bored me. Seriously, afterwards, I was amazed at my reaction. Years of being screamed at and threatened in my day job had made me completely impassive to this idiot’s threats. Having said that, had I had a gun I’d have shot him and no jury in the world would have convicted me. Lacking a gun I went into de-escalation mode.
Unfortunately in terms of timing, prior to the accident I had initiated a chat with my policey friend Lisa, using messenger on my iPhone. As I am trying to de-escalate this putz, my phone is going off every ten seconds with Lisa asking where did I go and was I alright. Hard to calm people down when your pocket keeps loudly buzzing at you.
Fortunately I’m good at my job. Got the putz’s name and mobile. Didn’t have insurance naturally. Got the car details. Had him eating out of the palm of my hand by the time I was done with him.
But total putz. Total, total putz.
Ironically it was the complete opposite of there never being a policeman round when you need them. Policeman in my pocket, being bloody loud. And persistent. When I told Lisa how close she came to getting me killed, she laughed like a drain. Honestly. Oh the cynical South Australian Police Force.
What’s more, Lisa will laugh more when she reads this. You so owe me a drink.
Away For A Bit 