Make My Day

Yesterday we had a meeting at work with an RCMP constable and she was so cool and tough, that I think we were all in love by the end of her presentation.  She brooked no bullshit and would be there to cover us if we chose to join the law and order team.  It felt great. It was like a Harlequin romance hero had just materialized to enclose us in her sheltering, and armed embrace.

Our workplace isn’t highly unsafe but has the potential to become so in that we deal with the public.  Sad that most of us do and therefore are at risk from members of that public who either are or should be medicated, should be in psychiatric care or are breaking the terms of their probation. This is the new normal in the public sector and we need to prepare ourselves for it if we wish to work there.  Luckily, our manager has jumped all over this project and thus, the meeting with a member of the local constabulary.

There must have been reverberations through the canine universe because our dog decided to join the war on cats, just not ours.  Oscar is 14 and has spent most of his life cowering from all cats and our cat in particular who admittedly, is a bully. When he wouldn’t respond to my husband’s commands to be quiet, due to his selective deafness, Jerry was forced to track him down.  He found him next door barking up at the neighbour’s cat who was perched up on their back deck. Oscar never leaves our yard, in fact he seldom wakes up so it was a surprise to see him there letting the cat know the new rules. “And furthermore, don’t even LOOK at the mice at our place …”  With jaunty, divot loosening kicks of his stumpy hind legs, he decided to spare the cat further humiliation and accompany Jerry safely back from enemy lines.

As it turned out, my co-workers and I had cause to use our training shortly after our meeting yesterday and everything went very smoothly – right down to the snick of handcuffs.  I’m not sure but I think the dog tried to high-five me when I got home.