Open Letter to the Police Inspector General

Dear inspector general, what a day I had yesterday!

From looking at your very impressive picture here on the interwebs, I gather you must be the Big Boss, or like they say here in my valley, the ‘chief’ of our esteemed police force.

I will just call you Chief, because all those titles and important names are so heavy to repeat every time.

Yesterday I had to go to our local copshop, yes, I like to call them shops, because the people who are working there are supposed to deliver a service to people like me.

After all, I am paying taxes, and that in turn pays their salaries? I was so surprised when I walked into our local copshop and all the people working there looked very stressed out and unhappy.

I am sure it must be because their uniforms looked two sizes too small.

Nobody was smiling, nobody was greeting anyone, and yes, the customary nose digging was on full display.

Oh, and then I must say the officers here are champion bubblegum chewers.

Man! They can click and blow bubbles with that gum! I was amazed!

But hey, I am not complaining, after all, the lady behind the desk, while busy selling her perfume to her colleagues and checking her price lists, eventually looked up and recognised my existence in her office.

Looking at all the jars of sweets for sale on her desk and the packets of peanuts, I almost forgot why I was there.

This lady should become the next sweets general in the force! I can highly recommend her to you.

So, after standing around there and feeling like I have intruded on her sales time, I humbly asked if I could get my receipt back and come back another time when she was not so busy.

Man, did I feel bad for disturbing her precious time.

I would really recommend that police officers here at Oranjemund get free time to sell their stuff from their offices, and maybe they should not be bothered with actual police work.

What do you think of that, my dear Chief?

While on this topic, perhaps we should donate some sleeper couches and comfy chairs to them so they could get through their stressful days, or what?

I almost forgot, Chief, you should really see to it that they all get free Wi-Fi.

Then you don’t have to buy any TVs. They would all be on their cellphones all the time.

That would really be great.

Chief, while you and I are having such a nice discussion, we should maybe think of getting them donkey carts and do away with the vehicles?

They could then rent out the vehicles and start free taxi services all over town? Wouldn’t that be great?

I will go back today and see if they have time for me. I just hope I am not disturbing them again today.

We will just have to bear this, our lot is Africa, not a place for the faint-hearted or First-World standards.

Have a great day, Chief, hope you have a better day than what I am having.

Forever your friend and humble ex-policeman,
Hugo Hamman