Kindness
on the
highway
ONE good turn deserves another. A story comes this way of a Maritzburg attorney who was driving up from Durban when he took pity on a particularly wan and woebegone hitch-hiker at the roadside. He stopped and gave him a lift.
The hitch-hiker was not strong on the small talk, mainly just stared straight ahead. Then = whoops! – they got flagged down by a cop. They'd gone through a speed trap. The attorney was arguing in irritation with the cop as he wrote out the ticket, knowing it was a lost cause, when suddenly he saw his passenger had got out of the car and come round to the driver's window.
He started shoving the cop around, bumping and hassling him. The attorney was appalled. This was compounding the felony.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
The cop was furious, threatening all kinds of dire punishment.
"I don't know this guy. He's a hitch-hiker."
"He's in your car. You're responsible for him."
The fellow got back into the car and they drove off.
"What on earth was all that about? What did you think you were doing?"
"I must explain. I'm a pickpocket. I've just got out of jail."
He handed the attorney the cop's book of tickets, the attorney's details the latest on the stubs.
What do you do when, as an officer of the court, you're the unwitting beneficiary of a crime? You take the culprit for a slap-up meal at a diner, that's what.
But lest the provincial traffic cops or the law society think of launching any kind of witch-hunt, it's too late. It happened years ago and the attorney – who I knew well – is no longer with us. I heard the story for the first time last weekend from a mutual friend. I repeat it merely to cheer up motorists in general.
A VIDEO clip is doing the rounds. A TV set is playing. Standing watching are a Jack Russell, a dalmation, an Irish wolfhound and a collie.
On screen is Donald Trump. It's that acrimonious White House press conference after the mid-term elections when Trump refused to let a CNN reporter ask questions.
"Sit!" he says as the CNN man remonstrates. "Sit down! Sit! Sit! Sit!"
The Jack Russell, the dalmation, the Irish wolfhound and the collie sit, as they've been trained, and pay respectful attention.
Dogs are obedient. CNN isn't.
READER Dave Pickford asks what you call a bulletproof Irishman?
Rick O'Shea
RACCOONS in the American state of West Virginia are getting plastered and terrorising neighbourhoods. They get aggressive when they've had too much, according to Huffington Post.
Where do the raccoons get the booze? They apparently feast on crabapples, which ferment into alcohol in their tummies. And then their behaviour becomes appalling – worse than undergraduate students – and they become aggressive toward humans, whose snobbishness they have always resented.
The police at Milton recently hauled in two hopelessly drunk raccoons, placing them in custody until they sobered up, after which they were released into the woods – but probably just to go on the razzle again. They appeal to people to just not get involved if they find raccoons lurching about.
Happiness is to be a raccoon in crabapple season.
Tailpiece
THIS lecherous Scotsman lured a girl up to his attic to look at his etchings. Before she knew it, he'd sold her four of them.
Last word
How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?
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