The day I became a criminal

I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned this before; maybe because I like to bend the rules and walk on the wild side of life now. “Now” being as of last week when I was caught jaywalking by a German police officer.

This sounds a lot scarier than it actually was.

Being reprimanded by a German police officer in German seems like the sort of thing that would make you excrete liquid from all orifices in one explosive undertaking. You’d look at him, he’d look at you and the next thing you knew, you’d be wading through a pile of your own shit and organs, and explaining how in Australia everything is upside-down, so naturally red means go.

This is not a situation I ever envisioned myself in, since I’m not the sort of person who breaks the law (unless you count that time I got pulled over for speeding while driving my car, via screwdriver, from Canberra to Sydney...but that’s a WHOLE other story).

But you know what they say: it is amazing what McDonald’s cravings will make you do.

Let me set the scene:

Simon, my partner-in-crime, had a ghastly hangover; the kind that makes you question whether it wouldn’t have been more efficient to just remove your liver and let it marinate in a bottle of tequila. The kind of hangover that makes you crave McDonalds like a starved bush man out for burger blood.

I was not hung over, seeing as I have no social life. I mean, of course I have a social life, it’s just that it involves working and intensively pretending to learn German. Even so, I have my needs, so I agreed to go to McDonald’s with Simon and really punish some burgers.

Skip forward fifteen or so minutes and there we were, just a two-way street away from our destination and gagging for it.

The light was red. Meaning “don’t cross”.

Standing on the other side of the road, as noticeable as two tall German police officers in police uniforms, were two German police officers in police uniforms. Also meaning “don’t cross”.

So we looked them straight in the eye and, with a mixture of helplessness and desperation, began our slow descent into criminality.

Half way, at a pedestrian island, we briefly conversed about how two German police officers were watching us break the law. But it’s not like we could do anything about it. Our bodies were no longer under our control, so we crossed again.

When we made it to the other side, we half expected to be severely beaten with a brick or schnitzel or something...or at least shouted at. But the young police officer who came to do the reprimanding was both younger than us and a little bit frightened of the desperation in our eyes. So, after warning us that normally he’d charge us five euro for our crimes (seriously Germany?! It’s such an absurd amount that Simon had to ask the man to repeat himself!), he let us off. 

But now that I’ve had a taste for crime, I fear there’s no turning back...it’s just a matter of time before I tattoo my mother’s name or a picture of Big Mac across my heart.