Lock Him Up, And Throw Away The Key!

Yesterday was an unexpected eventful day. I was at home working away in my room , when I heard someone in the next room looking for something. Not unusual. I don't own this house and the person I live with is the most untidy person you have never met and so therefore is always losing something. So I ignored the rummaging for a bit and carried on working. But after a while I got up off my chair to see if I could help, I put one hand on the door handle and the person on the other side ran down the down the stairs, instinct took over, I ran after them.

Stupid thing to do for two reasons, the other person I was trying so desperately to confront could have had a knife or worse a syringe but more importantly I struggled to get out of bed in the morning and walking from A - B causes discomfort. Yet here I was suddenly trying to run after someone without a plan of what I was going to do if I caught them. I'm sure they would have been really scared if I said something like "Ooh you lil ******! Ow! You made me run after you, you ****! Ow! My back hurts, now your face is going to hurt - but wait, let me just get my posture back....OWW! That's better - kinda."

Something tells me he wouldn't have been suitably distressed, it may just as well he was always 10 steps ahead of me and got out the garden before I could catch up with him. I never even really got a good enough look to identify him. I did see a girl, well I say girl but as the police would prefer to say, and did so often, 'female' around 25 years of age, run across the garden in the same direction, after I had given up the chase. It was a second or two of seeing this 'female' before my mind went from 'what the hell is a woman doing running in the garden?' to 'oh hell, she's with him, and was the lookout.' At least, even though I was too slow in my reactions to give chase, I did get a decent look at her. Which then meant I spent much of the morning looking through a scrapbook this morning. It was a little disconcerting thumbing through a book of mugshots - there was that little bit of doubt that I might identify the wrong one but apparently I got the right one that the Police suspected all along. Phew! That was a relief I can tell you. My guilt was instantly dissipated. Why I felt guilt I cannot say, I was, presumedly, thumbing through a book of people who had all done something legally wrong and all guilty of something.

Perhaps I would have done society as a whole a favour by changing my story (slightly) to "Officer I remember now, I don't know why I didn't remember this important detail before - excitement perhaps, but there was 12 of them, girls in the garden that is, females I mean. All of them of similar appearance and here you are - one, two, three." Pointing at the corresponding pictures of course."Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve." But I didn't do it, I couldn't - even if I had thought of it. In the end I was around 90% sure I had the right one but still the nagging doubt of 'what if?' at least until I saw the knowing nodding exchanges between the two policemen in the room.

Anyway to my point, the above was just a long winded precursor inserted for a sense of place - nothing more. A neighbours suggestion after taking an interest in the activity caused by the arrival and dispersal of the police vans was that they should "lock up him and throw away the key." Personally I find this saying to be rather stupid and a counter productive approach. How far can you throw a key? I couldn't throw one very far, but then I'm injured, perhaps you with a better back might throw it further. But I suspect not much further. Even the best trained object throwers probably wouldn't throw a key a reasonably suitable distance. Steve Backley an ex Olympic silver medallist, eternal loser to a Czech (I think) whose name escapes me) with many years of experience could only throw a javelin 90 odd metres. As impressive as 90 metres may sound, my suspicion is that a javelin is a little more aerodynamic than a key and would take to being thrown further distances. A key being thrown by an expert with the perfect technique might throw it 40 metres away, maybe, failing a convenient passing hurricane, it would land 50 metres away on a good day. Now what's the point in locking someone up if his friend can so easily find the key and release him again? Someone really needs to rethink that saying.

Throwing a key into a key manufacturers workshop with hundreds of thousands of similar, but suitably different, keys lying on the floor might be a better idea. That way the friend might get bored and give up trying different keys in the lock or just take enough time to release the guilty and therefore give them time to rethink their ways. This may be unlikely too, but hey I'm an optimist, just a very cynical one.