This Country Needs - Spray Officers

After 5 months of back pain I finally decided to see my GP a fortnight ago. Yeah I'm a stubborn eejit. I'll deal with pain for 5 months day and night before I finally decide i'm a deserving candidate for the attention of a doctor. I have a high tolerance for pain so I tend to measure my pain against the pain of those who are dying. Inevitably my pain usually falls short so rather than take up the time of a doctor I tsuck it up and eventually my body heals on my own. Usually. Only this time it didn't. I probably still wouldn't have went to the doctor's if it hadn't been for the night I couldn't get my jeans past my knees when I wanted to go to bed..

That state of limbo was the straw that broke my resistance and off to the doctors I went the next morning.

His advice, after waiting a week for the results of the x ray, get surgery, change career or risk back problems for life.

Great! I don't mind saying surgery scares the bejeesus out of me. I don't like the idea of people cutting me open and messing about with drill bits anywhere near my back no matter how skilled they are. So it looks like I have to change career and hope it gets better on its own through rest. Which in its own way is going to be fun seeing as indecision on the career front is just one of my superpowers.

With so many possibilities for a new career I thought it might be best to narrow it down a little so I took a moment to reflect on what I wanted to be when I was kid.

Yeah that will really narrow down the choices.

I first dismissed the career choices of Clark Kent, Peter Parker and Jesse James as a lot to live up to for someone who can't write, doesn't own a camera (I did , it was stolen) and is against the usage of guns as a point of principle. I then had a brainwave - I could be a fireman!

Completely forgetting for a second that back pain might get in the way of actual fire fighting my mind was on more important things like the positive effect having a uniform might have on my sex life.. I'm a guy, we think about things like that.

I doubt aged 4 and a half that I thought much about what fire fighting would entail. At that age I didn't give it a second thought about running up ladders into smoke filled rooms receiving the gratitude of bored fetishistic housewives because I didn't really want to be a fireman. I wanted to be a spray man! I just wanted to use the hose and spray things with it.

Thinking about it now there might actually be a need for spray men. after all this is a country that has Police Community Support Officers, who are essentially police officers but with out the wage, training or powers of arrest but they do get a uniform. Now if there is a need for such Police Community Support officers there is surely a greater need for Spray Officers. Spray Officers wouldn't need to be the trained in how to run up ladders or how to handle a smoke filled environment because they would be there to support those with such training. They would be trined to use a hose in less dangerous but still needy environments.

Spray officers could be the answer to a long standing problem for the Scottish Fire Brigade. Within a fortnight of the introduction of spray officers neds who up until that point thought that Friday night entertainment consisted of throwing stones or Irn Bru bottles at Firemen (and women), would be forever more absent spectators at Scottish fire incidents. You may think that would eliminate the need for the Spray Officers but you'd be wrong. After spraying the neds was done there would still be the lousy parents to deal with. There are a lot of bad parents in this world. Parents who put their own safety before the safety of the child, You know the ones. You've seen them on TV. The parents who are out in the street screaming hysterically that their wee Jimmy is still in the house. If wee Jimmy was yours or mine we wouldn't be outside screaming as to the whereabouts of the fire brigade, we'd be risking life and limb trying to get into the house, it would take 10 people to stop us.

Dammit to hell! Why did I have to do my back in! You have no idea how many bad parents I would take great pleasure in spraying half way down the street. That job would have an (almost) illegal amount of job satisfaction.