July 15, 1999
Brian J. Ford, Chief
Ottawa-Carleton Regional Police Service
P.O. Box 9634
Station T
Ottawa, ON K1G 6H5
Dear Chief Ford:
We wish to express most vociferously our annoyance
at the deportment of your department, specifically referring to the
behaviour and appearance of the immense officers patrolling Ottawa's
bustling downtown core on bicycles.
As tourists in our nation's capital this past week,
our members were appalled to observe your non-motorized, two-wheeled,
mountainous sentinels serving as a bad example to impressionable children,
disobeying the rules of the road, and generally serving to diminish
the masculinity of the average Canadian male tourist in the eyes of
his formerly adoring non-gender-specific companion. Let me state the
specifics of these concerns for your future consideration and, we trust,
swift and decisive action.
Firstly, we were dismayed to note that Ottawa's
barrel-chested guardians of justice were not using suitable cranial
safety apparatus. In simple terms, they were not wearing bicycle helmets.
Certainly there are those who disparage the use of such skull-saving
equipment. However, while we fully support their right to risk serious
cerebral trauma rather than suffer the humiliating hazard of helmet-head,
it is commonly accepted that children should wear protective covering
on their delicate mental melons. As such, we were confounded that your
brawny patrolmen, the valorous icons up to whom our impressionable offspring
so often look, should serve as such a poor illustration of sensible
and safety-conscious behaviour.
As a second example of constabulary malfeasance,
we were aghast to note your bulging beat-cops riding on the wrong side
of the road. Again, this sets a sorry example for our young people,
as well as further imprinting the long-held but erroneous belief that
a bicycle is not a motor vehicle. We would appreciate your rolling righters-of-wrong
keeping their mighty thews and sinews firmly rooted on the correct portion
of the roadway, unless engaged in the active investigation of a crime
or the direct pursuit of a fugitive. Even then, as always, we would
entreat you to encourage your muscle-bound men to stay in their own
lane and signal when turning.
Lastly, and we would stress, most importantly,
we as average Canadian men were horrified to find ourselves in such
close proximity to physical specimens normally found only in the well-thumbed
pages of men's health magazines at beautification boutiques. In comparison
to the bronzed bicycling beefcake boys of the Ottawa-Carleton Regional
Police Service, we were found by our travelling companions to be significantly
lacking in almost every bodily respect. Perhaps you can imagine the
thigh anxiety, the abdominal embarrassment, the quandary of quadriceps
with which we were faced. The well-turned calves of your robust and
rippled road rangers were perhaps the last spike in the railway of our
manly diminution.
We are pleased to provide suggestions for addressing
these issues. Clearly, your support in requiring helmets to be worn
would be helpful, both for the safety of your staff and that of your
city's children. Similarly, it could only be beneficial for you to point
out to your Herculean officers the value of obeying the rules of the
road. As to our concern about appearing rather droopy and shapeless
in the eyes of those with whom we lunch, we recognize that a bit of
toning on our part would be a significant step forward; however, if
you were to begin hiring thin, pasty and physically-inept officers for
your bicycle force, it would be a blessing to the average Canadian male.
Should such practices commence, please contact us immediately; we would
be pleased to write you a Letter of Approval, as well as to submit our
resumes.
We hope that these suggestions will be treated
with the same amount of seriousness in which they are given.
Sincerely,
D. Bartholomew Lurie, Flyboy
On behalf of the Emily Chesley Reading Circle
