The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Chaps.
We need to deal with a few wardrobe issues.

Listen carefully:
Chino’s. Are. Out. Of. Fashion.
You remember how we used to go to weddings as a bachelor in the nineties and get drunk and feel idiotic bunching up to catch the garter.
Well, back then we did wear Chino’s. With brown shoes (brogues) and a (normally) blue shirt, and a lame tie. (Our only one)
And back then it was okay.
We were young. We had no clue.
It’s not okay anymore. We need to move on.
Look down. Please tell me you are not wearing Chinos and brown shoes.
If you are, let’s agree to make this the last time. Okay.

Ruby jerseys, Football tops, Soccer Strips.
You can wear your mock Springbok jersey – but only if you are going to a live game.
You can wear your Manchester United strip – but only if it is a massive game and a whole pack of you are meeting at one of your houses for the game.
You can wear faux sporting gear – but it must be a big game. Like an international. A world cup. A World Series. The FA Cup. Something like that.
It is not okay to wear a rugby/soccer/football top when you go out shopping on a Saturday morning. Yes, I know someone mistook you for Joel Stransky in Cavendish Square Shopping Mall in 1994. But that was 15 years ago. You had more hair then.
And when you go out for Friday night drinks. It is NOT okay to wear your English Football Jersey with Beckham’s name on the back. Nobody will mistake you for the actual player on the team. Nobody actually thinks you know him. Not then. Certainly not now.
You took their posters down off your bedroom walls. Now, please stop wearing their strips.
Don’t do it. It gives us all a bad name.
(And that Varsity third fifteen rugby jersey you still fit into. That counts too)

Here are some basics for all of us about Jeans. We can wear jeans if we are over 40, but never under any of the following circumstances:
• Never (ever) wear your jeans above your belly button. Or even on your belly button for that matter. Guess where your hips used to be and try and get them in that general vicinity.
• You cannot tuck your shirt into your jeans. Any shirt. Ever. You will look like a knob.
• Don’t wear work shoes with Jeans. You think you look like an Italian model. You actually look like the guy from The Office. Polished shoes and jeans = not good.
• Never (ever) ((ever)) iron your jeans. A sharp crease down the front of your jeans? “Yes. I am trying to look informal. And Yes. I do look like a dick.”
• You know when you look down and see some sock between the bottom of your jeans and the top of your shoes?
• Well. Unless you said “No”, either lengthen them, lower them, or buy new ones.

If this is you, and it probably is. Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s all of us. Just keep it tight tomorrow when you get dressed. And if this isn’t you, there is definitely someone in your immediate circle of friends it is.

Forward them this.
They’ll thank you.
They don’t know any better yet.

The famous Five go to Adventure Island

Thanks to my five members. (Don’t feel alone - I can see from my hidden stat counter that there are thousands, maybe even hundreds, and possibly even scores more of you)
(This includes counting those visits that lasted under 4.35 seconds, (odd? – I have been trying to think of words that are spelled like shitsake, that might accidently get you to the blogsite. And I am only slightly hurt that once you did arrive accidently, I couldn’t keep you captivated for longer than 4.35 seconds) (Oh, and my mum, who checks in five times each day and keeps the stats ticking over nicely)

Back to the Famous Five. (Don’t get too protective or settled. By my calculation, should my blog continue to spawn itself virally over Face book, Twitter and Google, at its current level, by November the 18th you might well be the Secret Seven)

I have managed to sell your details to seven mobile phone companies, thirteen stock-broking firms based in Taiwan, four Time-share companies, and a gentleman from the Office of the President of Nigeria, who has $42 million dollars that he needs to transfer internationally.
(I am also in negotiations with the “Big Three” life insurance companies)

I didn’t get as much as I thought for the sale of your information. Certainly not enough for brekky. So we will need to take a rain-check on my offer of a free champagne breakfast at Café Roux in Noordhoek for every membership.

Instead, take your entire family for a balmy, sunny, summer, Sunday breakfast at Café Roux (go with the eggs Benedikt, by the way), at your own expense. Then reimburse yourself when the money comes through from the Office of the President of Nigeria.
(This is a special deal, and it is only for the first five members I am afraid)

Man Dates - Ag sweet, you feel anxious and nervous

The advent of middle age moves a lot of men inadvertently and involuntarily into the area of man-dates.
What used to be rowdy, large group get together, transitions into ever smaller groups as guys get married and family life kicks in.
Chances are your very first man-date will be an accident.
Six of you arranged to meet. Four of you cancelled. Two of you felt awkward.
Your first real man-date.
Ag Sweet. You feel anxious and nervous.
To help you through this transition and allay any fears about your masculinity, here are the basic do's and don’ts about man-dating.

Going to see a movie is okay, but, it can't be art-house.
It has to be main stream.
Some cult classics like The Big Labowski or even The Blues Brothers are acceptable, but to be completely safe stick with something mainstream. There is a 75% chance your date is not into anything more sophisticated than a car chase and a shoot out. Think about him and keep him happy.
Going to see a movie might well be okay. Sharing popcorn definitely isn't. This is a mega big no-no.
Buy and eat your own popcorn.
Dipping into your date’s popcorn seriously mustn’t happen. There is too high a chance of awkward and accidental hand contact. Regardless of your open mind, this is a pressure situation. Just don't do it.
And don't offer to buy him anything either, certainly not on your first date anyway. Buy your own. Eat your own.
For obvious reasons I shouldn’t even need to mention slush-puppies and shared straws (think bumping foreheads over the same cup)

Meals before and after a movie are a tricky one.
It's okay to have a beer beforehand, probably even a burger. Coffee afterwards though, can be a little awkward and intimate. Especially if it’s late and the crown has thinned out.
Meeting for coffee before a movie though is no problem. But don't spoil it by ordering cake. Especially never (ever) share cake (or any meal for that matter).
I once had a man-date where we shared a slice of cake, and we only had a one fork. Very, VERY awkward.
Be careful how you sit. You can put him under a lot of pressure. Try not to, and never (ever) order anything for your date if he is not at the table. That’s his job. Not yours.
An important point to note is to avoid ambiance restaurants. Ideally you want to be hitting burger joints. The most sophisticated I would recommend would be a sushi bar. If you see candles. Leave pronto.

This brings us to another very important point.
Leaving at the end of the date.
Avoid the awkwardness of saying good-bye in the car park. Leave separately from the cinema or wherever you are and head off in your own direction. Immediately.
Trust me. Nothing is going to be more awkward than standing in front of each other in a deserted parking lot, wondering how to say goodbye.
A casual hand slap - handshake combination as you leave, with a greeting thrown over your shoulder is where you want to be at. Not staring awkwardly at each other standing next to the front door of his car.

Take it easy. Don’t rush things. There will be plenty of future dates.

MOVIE CRIT - SALT

Just seen Angelina Jolie in SALT.
What a load of crapeola.
Remember that guy when you were 13. The one you secretly felt sorry for because he was never picked for team.
The guy who was really skinny and ran in an uncorordinated way.
Well that guy. Even he would have kicked her arse.
Do not bother to watch this movie.
Poor acting and watching a stick figure try to come accross as an arse kicking agent was jsut so very badly done.
A real crapster.

The Refridgerator

Christmas a couple of years ago and my parents, who live in Betty’s Bay, (about an hour and a half out of Cape Town) had been working hard to get us up there over Christmas and New Year.
Well actually in October they were working hard at getting us up there, but by the beginning of December they were back peddling a bit.
Parents are brilliant like that. They dress everything for your benefit.
Once the reality of having two adults, three grandchildren, a forth “other” child, and two dogs, to share their two bedroom cottage had sunk in, the phone calls started.

“My boy, we thought you chaps would be much happier in your own place so we have rented the next door house from the neighbours. Now you can be completely independent and do your own thing.”

In fact the plan had been to dump all the kids and the dog with them, under the guise of grandparent bonding and shut ourselves up in one of the rooms to read and sleep and rest. Being independent in a separate house with all my children and pets was moving too far from the plan for our liking.

So it was that when we arrived there on Christmas day we were booked into the cottage next door which we had kindly been given the use of by the elderly neighbours. After a glass or three of welcoming of champagne had blotted out most of the memory of the kids screaming on the trip out, my wife and I started to carry our bags and all the Christmas gifts, from the car into the neighbours rented cottage.

But here’s the thing. In the kitchen of this cottage, was dilapidated fridge, with the remnants of a set of fridge magnets strewn across the front of it. You know. The ones with the words where you are inspired to write poetry and flowery prose. Except this set is so decrepit it only has about a tenth of the words.

Temptation is too hard to resist. Champagne has stirred my creative juices. I do what anybody under the circumstances would have done. I open the batting with a quick, crisp single, a clean and gentle “your crack smells like fish”
Not too bad with the words I had to choose from. Creative and clever.

As I pass my wife (who I love) on the way to the car for more bags I smile and proudly tell her to check out the fridge poetry.

Now my wife is amazing, and out of respect to her I won’t tell you what she wrote. Suffice to say she upped the stakes and gave me a very proud grin when she passed me on her next trip to the car.

Things deteriorated from there. Eventually we were both in stitches and giggling like teenagers. I ended off with a magnificent eight or nine word sentence that included the words “dark, hole, moist, smell and a few others”
It was actually not as smutty as it sounds. And I was (disturbingly) proud of how few words were left and how much sense the sentences actually made. (Writing this I have no idea where the children were. Certainly the eldest would have learnt to read by then. In the interests of Child Welfare let me state that the magnets were on the top door. Out of reach and out of sight)

Sadly the holiday week-end then took a bit of a dive. The next afternoon, (seriously and sadly) we got a call that my wife’s Gran had passed away. We decided that she would head back to town immediately, and that it would be better for the kids if I would follow the next day when I had got the kids settled down and the car packed up.
The next few days were obviously filled with the funeral and dealing with the sadness of it all.

And then, almost exactly 10 days later. It whacked me in the face. Shitsake!
The fridge. The magnets. The smut. The neighbours.
Shitsake.
In all the drama of getting back I had completely forgotten to clear the fridge.
It quite literally had the worst, most creatively disgusting smut you can imagine. It was funny to us. But we hadn’t planned for anybody else to see it.

A quick emergency call to my father (ex Michael House and all)
“Hey dad”
“Hi my boy”
“Um, tell me, have the neighbours been back to use the house?”
Fingers crossed. Thumbs held.
“Yes, they are there now, they came back about three days ago”
Shitsake.
“Listen, (I explain to him what we had done), you have to get over there and get it off the fridge”
(The disappointment in his voice. That his son. His very own son had allowed himself to be led astray like that.”
“Too late” he says. The elderly wife has already been over and she had obviously seen it. He just hadn’t known what she was on about. But he definitely remembered her using “pornography” and “fridge” in the same sentence. And they are a very Afrikaans couple and very conservative.
He was so embarrassed for me. He said he apologised a few days later and got a very strained smile out of them.

It wasn’t one of our most defining moments.
And of course last Christmas we got given fridge magnets by half the family.

Boundaries are important

I took the liberty of compiling a short list of boundaries. You might like to cut this out and post it on the fridge if you dare (Please make sure you erase any link to this blogsite. I have quite enough shitsake in my own life already thank you)
Please feel free to personalise it before you put it up.

To my darling (fill in wife’s name here)
In the interests of taking our relationship to a new and exciting level, I think that it is important that we both set some boundaries for each other.
These are meant to make our communication a lot better, our relationship a lot less ambiguous, and ultimately to create a greater sense of intimacy.

1. First off. I will not answer you when you mumble questions to me when you are lying in the bath upstairs and I am doing something (surprisingly important to me) downstairs. I will not grit my teeth and stop what I am doing and slowly walk towards you saying "what?....What?....What?" until I can hear you. Instead, I will simply not answer. You will quickly learn not to do it. Getting annoyed that I can’t hear you will not help.
2. Along a similar vein. Unless it is given me in writing (emails are acceptable), I accept no responsibility for forgotten engagements / important tasks to be done / bills to be paid / school pick-ups to be done / instructions to be followed. You cannot tell me retrospectively that “I told you last week. Remember. You were in the living room. It was 7.13 pm”. It only counts if it was in writing. I have noticed that often when you do tell me these critical things, it is under your breath, while I am having a conversation with two children and trying to juggle performing a task. Even if I say yes, make eye contact and nod my head. I still didn’t hear you. I am just nodding to make the moment get past more quickly so that I can get back to doing the one thing I was doing originally. Before the task. Before the two children. The original thing. My head is still there. It never left. I am nodding, but I cannot hear you.
3. Getting to first base is never going to work. When I say that it will it is not strictly accurate. In the interests of honesty you need to know that I am wired differently to you. I cannot stop until the match is over. If I am fit, I will sometimes be able to go into extra time. Perhaps even a penalty shoot out. At which stage I will want to sleep. But I will never be able to stop at first base.
4. There is nothing wrong with my bowels. The loo is quite simply the last spot in the house where I can go and not have three children asking me something at the same time. Yes, I could finish up in three minutes like you. But then I wouldn’t get a chance to read the paper. Would I. I know going to the loo at the kids dinner and bath time is inconvenient. I’m sure it’s just a co-incidence.
5. I understand that you have been hearing the same after dinner stories for the past decade. But the rest of the guests are enjoying them as much as you used to. I could get a new stable of stories, but this would necessitate me going off for four years backpacking around the med and following a principle of free love. I think it will probably work out best if you just try not to get annoyed with the exaggeration. And please try not to correct the stories. Especially not before the punch line.
6. Me doing the same thing wrong five times over a period of seven years is not a pattern. A pattern implies a frequency of occurrence. Smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day is a pattern.
7. You cannot take the best traits of the husbands of all of the women in your book club, and mould them into something I am meant to be. Yes her husband might be financially responsible and stable, but he dances funny and wears his jeans half way between his belly button and his tits.
8. When you come back from book club and know all about the sex lives of all of the other couples in the group, and I then ask you “Shitsake, what did you tell them about our sex life?” And you say “nothing. I didn’t talk about our sex life at all” I don’t always completely believe you.
9. It is actually completely reasonable for me not to get you anything on Valentines day (yes, even not making you a hand made card) when we have specifically and jointly decided not to buy into the shallowness of valentines day.
10. Most importantly, the fact that you have a far longer, far more deep and meaningful list of things I need to work on changing, and that I could only come up with the above nine points is not a reflection on who needs to change more. It simply confirms that you have greater powers of recall. And no boundary in the world will ever change that.

Don't you hate it when....

Don’t you hate it when:

1. It’s 09h15. You have just finished your second cup of coffee at work. All your emails are up to date and your desk is cleared. You feel a strong and satisfying bowl movement coming on. A good coffee-crap. You open the loo door. Shitsake. The cleaning lady is in there and still has 10 minutes of cleaning left. Yes, you could go later, but its hardly going to be as satisfying. Is it?
2. You lie back in the bath getting ready for dinner with friends. You sigh contentedly as the hot water rises up to your ears. Shitsake. Your wife (who you love) shaved her legs and armpits in the bath before you got in. And yes. That is a pubic hair floating next to your cheek.
3. You shave that last and most sensitive area below your nose with a blunt razor.
4. It wasn’t a big argument and it was all the way back in the middle of the afternoon. It is now 11pm and you are half asleep in bed thinking about the rugby match. A half smile on your face. Good win. Your wife (who you love) turns to you in the dark and says, “Are you going to say anything...”
5. Australian commentators say something like this: “There are only two rugby players alive who could have passed a ball like that! And they are both playing for Australia today”
6. Australian rugby commentators commentate.
7. Your 4 year old son gets a funny, guilty look on his face, which you know means that he has just taken a dump in the Virgin Active pool.
8. Kevin Pietersen punches the air after making a century.
9. South African athletes, who have barely been overseas long enough to settle in, speak with a foreign accent.
10. You are working your way through a bag of mixed nuts and shitsake, right at the end you bite down on a bad one that leaves a disgusting aftertaste in your mouth ruining the R18 you have just eaten.
11. You spend all Saturday working through a list of 20 items your wife wanted done. You sweat heroically through 19 of them. Feeling a deep sense of satisfaction. The first thing your wife (who you love) asks when she gets home. Before even saying hello. Is to ask if you had a chance to do the 20th chore you never did. Shitsake. I did all 19 of the others.
12. The pink woman’s razor that you bought your wife (who you love) lies unused in the bathroom cupboard, while your razor is clogged up with armpit and leg hairs.
13. You go away for a long week-end and have to spend Sunday afternoon cleaning up before you leave.
14. You have to choose between either England or Australia losing a match, at any sport. We need a new scoring system where on any given day, both teams can lose badly.
15. Your wife (who you love) thinks that it is hilarious to start sharing intimate details about your (alleged) skidmarks, and other (alledged) bad habits, at a dinner table with 11 friends after her third glass of wine.
16. Your kids spill fruit juice into the trays of your cars back doors, where it evaporates and leaves a sticky pool that is always missed at the carwash.
17. Big middle aged women who smell of cheap lavatory spray, squeeze in next to you on a long flight, and have carrier bags encroaching on your leg room and foot space.
18. You step in dog crap just before getting into the car and there is nobody to swear at or blame.
19. You don’t finish an excellent book by the end of a long week-end away, and you don’t have the nerve to nick it.
20. You let rip with a beauty in the privacy of your office, and your satisfaction is ruined by the book-keeper walking in and asking your advice.
21. You go out with your mates for dinner, have a salad and a glass of water, and they split the bill. Bastards.
22. Your kids inexplicably need to pee 15 minutes from home, on the away leg of a 5 hour car trip, alongside the most dangerous section of freeway in the country.
23. Your wife (who you love) actually makes eye contact with vendors selling things at traffic lights, and your car is soon surrounded by a sea of eager salesmen.
24. You are at your parents for a week-end. You have a new baby. The baby monitor is switched on and the speaker is on loud upstairs in the kitchen, next to where you parents are preparing lunch. Downstairs at the receiver you and your wife are (allegedly) talking dirty and getting heavy. Noise levels rise. The monitor crackles. You both stop what you are doing realising they have heard everything. She definitely said worse things than you did. You blush madly and avoid making eye contact with your parents all afternoon.
25. Its time to leave the dinner party. You have been charming and funny and debonair. Shitsake. You didn’t realise quite how much you had to drink. Your head is spinning. Your legs are weak. You know. You KNOW. That you cannot make it to the door without stumbling. Your wife (who you love) is driving. Which makes it even worse. She is stone cold sober. You are about to enter shitsake street my friend.

42 year old in charge of the pocket money

Admittedly, it might not have been the best parenting in the world.

Sonja was up in Bulungula with the two youngest kids over the two week Easter holiday and I was meant to follow with Skye to join them half way through. As it turned out things were going pear-shaped at work and I couldn't leave. So, much to Skye's disappointment, Sonja and I decided that it made more sense for Skye and I to rather spend Easter in Cape Town.

I planned not to work over the actual Easter Week-end and thought I would spend the time with Skye, doing some father/daughter quality-time activities. It was en route to one of these (a movie and ten-pin bowling) that it happened.

It went down something like this (although I can't swear to anything, as it happened fast)

Sharp eyed daughter: "Look dad, there's a pet shop."
Father: (no comment)
Doe eyed daughter: "Awe, please can I get a hamster?"
Responsible father: "No my love" (your mom will kill us) (Ten year old stuck in fathers body: "Hey that could be cool. No. Bad idea. Hey that could be cool. No bad idea. Hey that could be cool")
Shocked daughter: "Thanks dad, I didn't think you would stop."
Surprised father: "We're just going to have a look my love" (Ten year old stuck in fathers body: "Wow. cool pet shop. Look rabbits")

We end up in front of the hamster cages and I am thinking that, wow, for R10 they ARE cheap.
I thought one would be R20. So obviously I then say:
Then I (the adult and father) say: "Lets take two. A male and a female. Then they can mate"
I mean, it seemed kind of cool at the time and not such a bad idea.

I should have been concerned that the the shop assistant smelled of booze. But it was Easter and I figured well, drunk or not, he knew more than I did about sexing hamsters.
"How old are these I ask"
About two weeks old,", says he of the spirit breath.
Little babies, think I, half a year away from breeding. They'll be dead long before then. My kids'll squash em or drown em or lose em long before then.

42 year old father in charge of pocket money: "We want a male and female please"

Here's the thing. He looked so very confident. Drunk as he was, and we were leaning back to get out of range of his acrid breath, he looked so competent and confident. He stared at their non exisitant genitals, pulled something apart, and dropped a male and female into a box.

Then he conned me into buying sawdust, food, water dispensers, food bowls, and little orange msg hamster snacks.

Done deal. Skip movie. Skip bowling. Head home with hamsters, dig old cage out of storage, and make the house cosy and warm with saw dust and nibble snacks.

She: "this one looks pregnant dad"
Me (patronising): "Hamsters are all fat my love. She's too small to be pregnant, but maybe one day she will have babies"

We go to sleep a warm and loving house, albeit three members short. I am to chicken shit to phone the news through, so send off a short good night sms mentioning two new hamsters instead. No response.

Now. This is the true part. Without guile or exaggeration.

The next morning the fat baby had had five babies and was a proud mother.
Without the compounding of time for the sake of a good story.
One setting and rising of the sun.
When we woke up the next morning we had seven hamsters and not two.

Daughter very excited and phoning her mom with the good news.
Me, not so. Keeping away from my phone I was starting to think this may not be a good idea after all.

The next night when we went to sleep, Skye, having spent half her evening examining the blind, pink and ugly brood, came and told me that the other hamster, the dad hamster, the father hamster, the male hamster, was making a nest and not only that, but his boobs were swollen as well.

Silly irritating child.

The next day. Day two since we bought male and female baby hamsters. The next day the father hamster. The dad. The male. He of the swollen breasts. Well, it decides to have babies too. And not just one. Six of them. Gospel truth. Not a lie in there.

In two days we had gone from two hamsters to thirteen hamsters.

And that was my saving grace. It was that bad, and that unbelievable, it was that shocking, that it was funny.

Epilogue:

The childrens mother got back and immediately decided we were taking all the babies back to the pet shop. The childrens father hid out in the shed.

The childrens father then snuck one of the babies to the snake (this is our actual pet snake that eats live mice), he was figuring that he was saving twenty bucks on petrol going to buy mice, and that these were going back to the pet shop anyway. (however, the sharp eyed children spotted one was missing and the childrens father was forced to run into the garden, dig up some earth, drop some flowers on the mound, and confirmed that one had died and that he had buried it (fingers crossed).
That left 12.

The childrens mother took ten back to the pet shop. (actually, the pet shop was still closed so she left all ten with the owner of the liquor store next door and asked him to give them to the pet shop owner when he got in)
That left 2.

One escaped never to be seen again.
That left 1.

The final one, got out the cage. Was caught by the cat, who brought it downstairs to play with its kill. Was taken away from the cat, by the dog, and was found wet and half dead in the mouth of the dog by the six year old daughter. In tears, her father explains to her that the hamster must have fallen down the stairs and badly injured itself, and the dog was just trying to save its life by bringing it to us it its mouth. We wrapped it warmly and left it comatose next to our bed next to the heater. It made lots of shuffling sounds in the night. In the morning it was stiff as a plank.
That left none.

Last Wednesday I came home with a white rat.

Never give a wallet to a 42 year old man with a 10 year old boy trapped inside his body.

Secret Agent

Standing there vigilantly, walkie-talkie in hand, the thought crossed my mind that if somebody did try and make their way forcibly past me, and through the gate I was protecting, I would have no way of actually stopping them, short of jamming my arm through the bars while they relentlessly forced the gate open until my arm finally snapped.
That wouldn’t actually do all that well to be honest.
I mean, the least they could do was provide me with a well oiled and robust padlock, ready to be slammed through the bolt at a moments notice. It surely wasn’t too much to ask.
Without seeming too alarmist I casually walked past the security hut and glanced inside. Sure enough, a padlock was lying on the table. Open. Ready for use.
I measured the distance from my guard post to the table and rehearsed racing to get to it in an emergency.
I should just make it at a push.
There was also a set of hand-cuffs on the table. Nice.
I don’t know why I wasn’t issued a set.
You cannot take school guard duty too lightly.
It is every Fathers responsibility to be on the front line. To be firm with the late drop offs. To give the Principle a nod and a wink. To keep things smooth.
I have watched Munich and read a couple of secret service books in my time. I know the score. I have seen All the Presidents Men. I would have made a perfect secret agent. Cold, calculating, efficient.
While the rest of the countries teachers are on strike, my fifteen year old ten year old is at a school whose teachers are not on strike. This is a school whose fees we cannot afford, yet send our children to in the misguided hope that they don’t turn out to be too much like their old man, and more like their mother.
Don’t worry. They are not spoiled kids. I make sure that they know what this costs and use every available opportunity to let them know the sacrifice I am making using their mothers salary to pay for their expensive tuition.
I get a morning guard duty once a month. You should too. Cowards.
It’s a powerful responsibility, and having a walkie-talkie in your hand is a powerful thing. You gain three inches in height if you hold it correctly.
The best grip I have worked out is the classic Bobby on the Beat posture. I walk slowly and determinedly, eyes scanning vigilantly for any threats, hands behind my back, walkie-talkie held firmly in the outer hand. The trick is that when you reach the end of your beat, you stop and turn your body back, but (this is important), you leave your head facing the way you were walking, for a couple of seconds longer, like your animal sub-conscious has spotted something, a thoughtful, knowing look on your face while your body is turning back. Anybody staking you out with high powered glasses would know that you had spotted something. That you were alert. That they would be fools to take you on.
Another classic pose is The Tapping Arial. Stand watching approaching cars with your left hand on your hip (ready to draw), your right leg is slightly cocked, and with the walkie-talkie in your right hand, you thoughtfully and coolly, tap your leg with the aerial. (Not too hard or it will sting though.)
Another pointer is to make sure you get a good walkie-talkie. I got a terrible one last week. Instead of a good, solid menacing aerial, my aerial was a short solid piece, joined to the handset with a short spring. It wobbled like Noddy’s head and was hardly going to put the fear of god into any would be attackers.
Halfway through my duty I spotted a suspicious car. It had two young men in it pretending to be off to work. It seemed out of place. I carefully marked it in my mind, in case it came around the block again. When they drew closer I narrowed my eyes and clenched my jaw a few times.
I’ve got you marked buddy. You go and look suspicious somewhere else.
Mr walkie-talkie is all over you and your car.
Then it hit me. The flaw.
What if they drove past just once each day? What then?
Shitsake!
There was no way tomorrows parent would know that I had marked that car today.
And then I had this beautiful thought.
What I needed was a button.
If my walkie-talkie had a button on that I could press, that activated a hidden CCTV camera then a high tech control room, manned by SWAT operatives, could get footage of suspicious vehicles.
Better yet would be two buttons. An orange and a red one.
If it was a very dangerous looking car, then I could press the red one. And if it was only mildly threatening, then I could press the orange one.
The SWAT guys (my guys) could triage the footage into two risk groups. They would nod knowingly at each other and say things like “He hit a home run again”, and “Man, he knows his stuff.”
I have suggested the beautiful button idea to the Principle and as soon as he gets back to me I’ll let you know the outcome.
Oh, and to the parents with shitsake cars. We are a brotherhood. I love those occasional rusted, belching, wrecks that come out the gate.They are either making an admirable sacrifice to get their kids a good education, or they just don’t give a flying. You gotta love em.
And on my beat. Keep them safe.