The thing is, I don’t even hate cops. To tell you the truth, I actually feel a little sorry for them. Their hats. Wearing all that ridiculous cowboy gear around their waists. Having to look tough, yet friendly and approachable at the same time. Always having to grow a moustache (whether male, or in some cases, female) to look like they have authority. Doing all those push-ups and sit-ups and chin-ups at the police academy before they get a licence to eat donuts again. Telling people that someone in their family just got mangled in a car wreck … The list just goes on and on, so I’d better stop myself.

‘Look at the pig with the sausage roll,’ Rube points out. He clearly doesn’t care that these cops are hanging around like a bad smell. No way. It’s actually the exact opposite, as Rube walks straight towards the cop with the moustache who is eating a sausage roll with sauce. There are two of them. There’s the sausage roll cop, and a female cop. A brunette, with her hair tied under her hat. (Only her fringe falls seductively to her eyes.)

We arrive at them and it begins.

Ruben L. Wolfe: ‘How y’ feelin’ today, constable?’

Cop with food: ‘Not bad mate, how are you?’

Rube: ‘Enjoyin’ that sausage roll are y’?’

Cop devouring food: ‘Sure bloody am mate. You enjoyin’ watchin’?’

Rube: ‘Certainly. How much are they?’

Cop, swallowing: ‘A buck-eighty.’

Rube, smiling: ‘You got robbed.’

Cop, taking bite: ‘I know.’

Rube, starting to enjoy himself: ‘You should haul that tuckshop in for that, I reckon.’

Cop, with sauce on edge of his lip: ‘Maybe I should haul you in instead.’

Rube, pointing at sauce on lip: ‘What for?’

Cop, acknowledging sauce on lip and wiping it: ‘For plain smart alec behaviour.’

Rube, scratching his crotch conspicuously and glancing at the female accomplice cop: ‘Where’d y’ pick her up?’

Cop, beginning to enjoy himself now as well: ‘In the canteen.’

Rube, glancing at her again and continuing to scratch. ‘How much?’

Cop, finishing sausage roll: ‘A buck sixty.’

Rube, stopping the scratching: ‘You got robbed.’

Cop, remembering himself: ‘Hey, you better watch it.’

Rube, straightening his ragged flanno shirt and his pants: ‘Did they charge you for sauce? On the sausage roll, that is.’

Cop, shifting on spot: Nothing.

Rube, moving closer: ‘Well?’

Cop, unable to conceal the truth: ‘Twenty cents.’

Rube, staggered: ‘Twenty cents! For sauce?’

Cop, obviously disappointed in himself: ‘I know.’

Rube, earnest and honest, or at least one or the other: ‘You should have just gone without, out of principle. Don’t you have any self-control?’

Cop: ‘Are you tryin’ to start somethin’?’

Rube: ‘Certainly not.’

Cop: ‘Are y’ sure?’

At this point, the accomplice brunette female cop and I exchange looks of embarrassment and I consider her without her uniform. To me, she is only wearing underwear.