"I Am a Cop."

Photo by Duncan Brown

I am a cop. I go to work in the morning just like any guy. I may drink some coffee and drive around, or it can be ACTION ACTION ACTION all day long. You never know. I don’t carry a gun, but I keep one locked in my car. I like it that way, and I think most Norwegian cops would agree it’s for the best. Being a police officer is pretty hard work, but I like helping people out and that’s why I’m into it.

Take last night, it was intense. Weekends are always busy. We had three robberies, and then we went and broke up a couple of fights and after that there were some guys that had taken a beating. That’s pretty heavy on the bad news for an eight-hour shift. Of course there’s always the petty stuff. Like people wanting to put diapers on our police horses. Now obviously, that’s not happening, but in the 90s we got lots of complaints because the horses used to take a shit wherever, whenever. They aren’t toilet trained you know. I can understand why people who are eating in a restaurant wouldn’t want to have a shitting horse right outside their window, but honestly, their shit doesn’t smell bad. It is not like dog shit. All the same, I understand and respect that people don’t approve of it. Anyway, we tried out some experimental police horse diapers on the force, but they were made out of nylon and gave the horses sores and Candida fungus infections. So now, whenever police horses are on patrol they always take the side of the road where there are no restaurants, to prevent complaints. Another problem I had with a horse was when he ate a guy’s flower bouquet. Guy gets pissed and asks me to pay him for the flowers. I say “Of course,” and he gets out his phone to take my number, and the horse eats the phone too. They say cops have the best stories. Yeah we have a lot. A good one happened right after I graduated from the academy. I was sent off to work in a small town up north where nothing ever happened. I got the call for some kind of work-related accident, and I responded out to the harbour. When I got to the scene things were pretty chaotic. There was a lot of screaming and commotion. It turned out some guys were loading fish or something on to a boat. One of the labour guys had slipped and fallen down a shaft. On the deck below him there was a big metal door and the guy got pierced on the handlebar. Ouch. Yeah I know. Did I mention he had the whole handlebar up his ass? Jesus. He was like an apple on a stick. I may have to read this text before you print it.