OH MY DEAR POLICE, MY ONLY LOVE

13.06.04

I just put on the ‘Bank Robber Man’, a quite recent song from Lenny Kravitz. This song is talking about a true story. One day, Lenny happened to pass by a bank while it was being robbed. The robber managed to escape with the money and Lenny –who was back then known well only to his mom- was found to be handcuffed, simply because he was present at the time of the real chaos and his figure happened to match the description given by the witnesses for the robber.

I have been very mad with the cops lately. This Friday we went to Lycabettus Hill. We had to make a million prayers so that the cops let us take the car up there. They were talking with each other for ten whole minutes on their cordless phones before they finally let us pass.

Yesterday I went shopping with my mother and they gave us the ticket, because we had parked on a narrow road, thus (ostensibly) deterring the cars from getting through (we and 40 other people). We found a place next to a ramp so as to be able to climb the pavement easily with the wheelchair. When we finally got out of the store, which was a few meters away from our car, we found out (happily surprised) that my clothes cost us 10 times their price, since we didn’t only have to pay a fine of 60 Euros to the municipal police of Kifissia, who issued us the ticket, thus ignoring the disability sign on the windscreen, but we also had to fix the left door of the back of the Yaris, scratched and dented by a tremendously huge truck in order to cross the street, as we were told by some people from a near store. Nobody left us any note with his or her details of course.

For the next hour, we were driving circles with the car, hoping to find someone from the traffic police to cancel that ticket. The municipal police was closed for the weekend and the only way to be vindicated, as far as the fine was concerned at least, was to find someone of those so very smart ‘guardians’ of the citizens and ask him or her why the disability sign was ignored.

After a lot of searching we located a truly blond policewoman. She was resting under a tree, waiting for the time to pass and she was so lost in space that she was startled at our presence, as if there was no possibility of meeting anybody at a place like that at weekends. At first, she refused to cancel our ticket. She was staring at me straight into my eyes as if she was saying ‘there is no damn way of letting you get away with this, you creep’. I was staring at her even more persistently as if I was answering: ‘you stupid chick, if you don’t cancel it now, I will bring mister Foskolos here to direct a long-drawn-out affair on us’. I don’t like being let off. I believe you have understood this. When there is a reason for that, though, there is a reason and that’s it.
When I came home, I thought of everything that had occurred to me this week. I look at the beloved wrecked car and I am about to start swearing like a trooper. On the other hand, I am thinking: if all this never happened, what would I have to tell you here?

P.S.: Konstantina, I am glad you still ‘read’ me. Drawn by today’s entry, I’ll tell you this: Physical therapists are to me the same thing as cops. Both say to you that they force you for your own sake. Who gave them the right to decide for that? They simply speak with authority. As for me, I think that everyone who decides to be a cop or a physical therapist is a bit sick. It’s all right to become one accidentally but not purposefully. I’ll stop at some point here because you’ll think that I am some sort of anarchist. No way, I assure you.