Random reminder ; < <

Press, 29 June 1983, Page 29

Random reminder ; < <

READY MAID

In tiny towns like Christchurch one of the risks of taking a responsible job like that of a traffic officer is that people you knew at school who were bigheaded loudmouthed and utterly without charm become even more so when they hiccup at you from behind dangle-dollies. Part of the training is all about intensive care of the half-witted, both before and after they have found their accident. One has to admire the way that traffic officers call their liabilities nothing but “sir” and “madam.” In public, at any rate. What the officers are called by the public in return varies from tiie maudlin to the pugnacious. The average Kiwi booze barrel — male or female — is the worlds only known carnivorous sheep — it is either at your throat or at your feet One officer felt faintly fed up with one old school chum. Regularly the dangledollies and the clinking bottles would screech to a blue-hazed halt outside a shop, on a Clearway, in peak-hour traffic.

As traffic dodged and cursed, the officer would react, but it takes minutes. Every time, with a few minor purchases, the driver would race out and drive off. This was trivial enough. What was annoying was the drivers cheerful greeting: G’day, Rita, meter maid, going orright in the Gestapo, eh? Har har. One day the traffic officer wrote out a ticket Place, date, offence, time, registration number, driver “unknown.” The traffic officer took station. The heap drew up on the dotted yellow lines as usual. As the driver dashed inside the shop, the meter maid sallied forth from her alley. Seconds later the ticket was firmly attached to the window and there was not a traffic officer in sight. It is said that the language used by the driver brought shocked protests from three people who happened to be walking past — a shearer, a sailor, and an S.A.S staff-sergeant