A Police Tief Me Hag!

New Year Resolution

Dr. Lester Simon-Hazlewood

This is just a friendly suggestion. For Christmas 2016, be highly selective of those to whom you offer good tidings of great joy. For example, if a seemingly pregnant woman and a man and a donkey come caroling at your gate and beg lodging for the night, do not under any circumstances put them up in the manger.

We rescued them and put them up in the manger. And now look at us. The first clue should have been the donkey singing. It was a Trojan ass. The second clue, in hindsight, was that they must have landed on one of our many isolated inlets and checked out, but did not check into any of the hotels. We should have suggested that they take up the CIP program, Christmas in Paradise.

So here we are at the police station undergoing questioning by a police officer who thinks he is really hot, with degrees in Centigrade, Chemistry, Fahrenheit and Forensic Sciences. He wants to know why I was away in the manger when the police came. I told him the yard-man usually looks after the cows and pigs and other animals in the manger. I couldn’t tell “when c’est last” I looked out there. But since we had already decked the halls with boughs of holly and it was a silent night, I was just going to see how the strangers were settling in, when suddenly the police pounced on me.

The officer said I should have suspected something when the strangers came calling late at night. He suggested that I should be very careful, especially at Christmas time. People take advantage of other people’s kindness; and you don’t know who might be a terrorist these days. Then he let on about manure in the manger containing gases like ammonia and carbon dioxide that can be toxic, and hydrogen sulfide and methane that can be used for explosives.

We were shocked! I told him I was so thankful and grateful that they had been trailing the terrorists from the time they landed. Realizing we were not in cahoots with them, he decided to let us go with a stern warning. Seeing we were nervous and distressed, he kindly offered us a plate of food and a drink since the police were having their Christmas party.

As we sat down to eat, I started wondering why the police allowed these dangerous strangers to reach so far; and why they were really patrolling our area so much that night. Just then, I saw someone passing in the police yard with a crocus bag under his arm. Then I saw cousin, King Obstinate locked up in a cell, singing in a sad refrain, “Family! A police tief me hag. A police tief me hag. A police tief me hag and wrap um up in a crocus bag.”