Scavengers

A new phenomenon walked into my life on my second day back on the streets. Scavenger hunts. This used to be a favourite past time when I was briefly in the Boy Scouts (Until the unfortunate incident with those two Girl Guides and half a bottle of shandy – let’s not go there. I’m a reformed character, honest yer worship.).

For those of you who are not familiar with this salubrious entertainment, it comprises of a list of tasks you have to complete, things you have to collect etcetera, etcetera. Recently, some quite mature individuals turned up upon a corporate version of one of these treasure hunts with the task of ‘Have your photograph taken with a traffic warden’. Guess who got caught today – that’s right, muggins – yours truly.

The bunch who accosted me asked for a signed (With my patrol number) Penalty Charge Notice envelope as proof, whilst their mates got a passer by to take their photo and a couple of them made silly gestures behind my back. Oh what the hell I confess, it was a sunny day and I was bored – okay?

Three of our shift got caught the same way in the town centre, one in the middle of booking a wrong ‘un. Big Harry was not best pleased because they got under his feet as he was trying to do his job. He lost the ticket too, so he returned from his beat with a face like thunder snarling dire deprecations at the scavenger hunters.

The rest of us took a bit more of a relaxed attitude towards them. It makes a change from getting negative stuff from the public all day long. You’ve got to make the job bearable somehow.