Sunday a mate of mine and I went for a ride up the coast and stopped at Cheviot for gas. My mate felt the need to refuel himself and suggested a cafe about 200m down the road, paid and turned down the road. I followed and because i have a lovely sounding motorcycle gave her a quick squirt to enjoy that triple snarl, slowed down and pulled into the cafe. I had taken my lid and gloves off, and was admiring a Rolls Royce parked beside me when I heard an annoying noise, looked around and there was a little constable standing by my elbow looking indignant.
Constable: "Did you just come from that gas station?"
Shrub: "Yep." Maybe he wanted a report on the service I got? Or had I won a prize for something?
Constable: "You were travelling at a hell of a speed'
Shrub: "Really? How fast was I going?"
Constable: "You were doing between 60 and 65 kmh"
Shrub: "No I wasn't - I didn't get out of first gear for gods sake, I doubt I got over 50". Now the Thunderbird has many characteristics, but "fast" is not one of them, and first only hits 60 if you don't mind hurting engines. As well as that the road was wet, I was planning to stop about 200m down the road and hard braking on the wet is to be avoided; so I had no intention of going fast.
Constable: "What do you do for a living?"
Shrub (wondering if the next question would be "what star sign are you? followed by "I'm a Gemini, would you like to meet for a do-nut?": "I'm a marketing consultant"
Constable: "Then you have no experience in estimating speed - I do, and it's my opinion that you were doing between 60 and 65 kmh"
Shrub: "I have ridden that bike for nearly 3 years and over 20,000 kms, so I have a lot of experience at what it feels like at various speeds, and it's my opinion I was doing around 50"
Constable: "well it's my opinion you were doing between 60 and 65, and it's my opinion that counts".
At this stage our noble enforcer of Her Majesty's laws and protector of widows and orphans was getting visibly distressed and I was getting bored with him so I made the decision to stop playing him before he exploded and arrested me for being too ugly for my bike or something.
Shrub: "OK, well that's fine then. Will that be all?"
My new-found friend realised that there was little more he could do, so proceeded to check licenses, rego, marital status etc, then radioed base to check that Shrub and his Thunderbird Sport weren't desperate fugitives from the law and the missing masterminds of 9/11. It seemed that my myriad sins had escaped the notice of our constabulary and he ended his radio call.
Shrub: "All good then?"
Constable: (Begrudgingly) "Yes".
Shrub: "Excellent. Have a nice day".
And our law enforcement professionals wonder why they have so little respect from the General Public, especially as they didn't even bother to send a bobby round when I got burgled.
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