Sawyer the Lawyer

“A policeman’s uniform? Oh most definitely, it’s one of our staples. We stock Constable, Sergeant, Inspector and Superintendent,” said the owner of the fancy dress shop.

I considered Superintendent but decided I’m a bit too young for it. I plumped for Inspector and asked how much it was.

“Thirty pounds.”

“I just want a policeman’s uniform, I don’t want one with a policeman in it,” I said.

The owner not only ignored my sarcasm but then piled on the agony for good measure. “Plus a fifty pounds deposit, refundable in full only if the uniform is returned unstained. Our costumes sometimes get returned with stains on them, especially policemen’s uniforms,” he explained, darkly.

I made a quick mental note to make sure that I remove my trousers before making love to Maria then asked if I could see what I’m expected to fork out eighty quid for. The owner went into the back and returned with the uniform of a police Inspector, complete with peaked hat. I asked if I could try it on. The owner indicated a cubicle. I stepped into the cubicle but before trying on the uniform I inspected it thoroughly for stains. If I have to pay for stains I wanted to ensure that they’re my stains, not other people’s stains. There were no stains. I put on the uniform. It fitted me perfectly, could have been made me for. I put on the hat and looked at my reflection in the full-length mirror. I looked really good, really… dare I say it, arresting. I tried out a few typical police phrases. ‘Hello hello hello’, ‘What’s all this then?’ ‘You’re nicked, Sunshine’, ‘You don’t have to say anything but if you…’

“Are you all right in there?” called the owner, his voice full of suspicion.

I ignored him, put my clothes back on, returned to the counter and stumped up the eighty pounds, plus, as an afterthought, ten pounds for a pair of handcuffs. I decided against a truncheon as it might make me look inadequate.

Sawyer the Lawyer


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Following my nightmare about my imminent date with Maria I got cold feet and called it of, pleading a cold. She was very understanding. I said I’d give her a ring as soon as my cold got better.
Sawyer the Lawyer.


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I was in the nurse’s hostel in bed with Maria (my trousers were neatly folded over a chair, in a stain-free environment). Suddenly there was a piercing scream from the room next door, followed by a shout of “Help! Rape!”

Maria pushed me off her, yelling: “That’s my friend Fiona!” Fiona screamed again, even louder. “She’s being raped!” said Maria, almost screaming herself. “Do something!”

I leaped off the bed and started to put on my trousers.

“There’s no time for that,” said Maria, and she could well have been right because Fiona screamed again and this time her scream was strangulated.

I put my trousers back over the chair and rushed to the door dressed in just my police Inspector’s tunic and hat. As I stepped out into the corridor the door to Fiona’s room burst open and a man shot out and legged it down the corridor. In the meantime Maria had got out of the handcuffs which had fastened her to the bedpost and joined me. “After him!” she screamed, pointing at the fleeing man.

I gave chase, but with no intention whatsoever of catching the man. I was supposed to be a policeman so I’d have had to arrest him, which was a route I most definitely did not want to go down. But now up ahead of me the man slipped on the polished floor and in falling banged his head on a fire extinguisher and dropped unconscious to the floor. I tried running on the spot for a bit but Maria wasn’t fooled and urged me forward. I reached the man just as he began to come round. Maria looked expectantly at me. What else could I do? “You’re nicked, Sunshine,” I said, with every intention of escorting him off the premises then telling him to piss off out of it quick.

But Fiona’s screams had been heard by others, amongst them a nurse who was entertaining her boyfriend, who is a real policeman, and who now turns up on the scene with him. He very soon recognises me as the impostor I am and he arrests me for impersonating a police officer.

Naturally the law firm of Nesbitt, Nesbitt & Anderson get to hear of all the above and they’ll have to let me go. I am now jobless. My disgraced parents throw me out. I am homeless, bereft, and ……… I woke up in a hot sweat and turned on the light. It is 2 a.m. I don’t sleep again all night, thinking about it.

Sawyer the Lawyer.


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“Why is there a policeman’s uniform in your wardrobe?” asked my mother, suspiciously.

Her question took me by surprise and all I was able to come up with is that old stand by of the guilty, “What?”

“There’s a policeman’s uniform hanging up in your wardrobe.”

How did she know that? Obviously she must have been snooping in my bedroom. “Why were you in my wardrobe?” I asked, accusingly.

Mother does long-suffering better than Oliver Hardy. She did it, then said: “How else do you think your clean and freshly ironed shirts get put on coat hangers and hung in there?”

Not snooping in my wardrobe then. And she still seemed keen on knowing why I have a policeman’s uniform in my wardrobe judging by the “Well?”, accompanied by an inquiring cock of her head. Inspiration arrived. I gift wrapped it in a lie. “I hired it from a fancy dress shop. I’m going to a fancy dress party.”

“Fancy dress party? I thought you didn’t like fancy dress parties.”

It was time to play my joker. “I don’t. But it’s one of the things I’d like to do before I settle down, in case I’m missing something.” The magic words ‘settle down’ worked like a charm.

The question ‘When are you going to settle down?’ coming from Mother’s lips is one I’ve heard many times before and with increasing frequency the closer I get to age 30. I am of course settled down in my eyes, and have been settled down for the last 26 years, but my mother’s interpretation of settled down differs somewhat from mine and involves leaving home, getting married and producing a couple of grandchildren.

She smiled at me and said: “Make sure you don’t lose your deposit.” What? What was she talking about, I told her I’m going to a fancy dress party not standing as a Green Party candidate at the next General Election. She saw my look of confusion and explained, in her mother hen manner. “If you return the policeman’s uniform in less than pristine condition you could lose your deposit, they’re very fuss like that. So if you do happen to get a stain on it let me have it and I’ll give it a blast with my Friend.”

Aren’t mother’s wonderful.

Sawyer the Lawyer