Traffic police Christmas party (by Jarl Hole)

Kulelynet had made up his mind: it was going to be a Christmas party for all the money in the world.
The problem, however, was that neither he nor any of the rest of us had any money!
It was already well into November, so Kulelynet really had to think hard to find a method that would bring the necessary funds quickly and painlessly into the party coffers.
The solution was, as usual, quite original and caused everyone to shake their heads when he presented it in the boys’ room.

That’s when Kulelynet decided to follow in the footsteps of the traffic police and collect fines for speeding, but unlike the police, he wanted to put the money in his own pocket.
Late one night, with wind and snowdrifts, he planned to collect so many fines that it was enough for a huge Christmas party for the whole gang.
The collection was to take place in the upper part of Nordbergveien, where the vast majority of motorists were driving too fast because the road was wide and on a gentle downhill slope.
To sweeten the pill, he would give the speeders two options.
They could either pay a fine of NOK 200 or take part in a lottery to raise money for the Traffic Police Christmas party, where each ticket cost NOK 100.
If the speeding driver drew the winning ticket, they could drive on with NOK 100 less, but with a 50% discount.
Kulelynet cynically assumed that this was an offer no one could refuse, so he had equipped himself with a red Santa hat full of winning tickets.
The aim was to fine a minimum of 10 drivers in order to raise NOK 1,000 for the party fund.

To convince those he stopped that he really was a traffic officer, he had equipped himself with a half-length black raincoat and a white bandolier that he used when he was part of the School Patrol at Tåsen school.
The trousers were riding breeches he stole from Velund’s riding center, and when he slipped a pair of his mother’s black patent leather boots over his riding breeches, the resemblance to a genuine traffic officer was striking.
Due to the chronic shortage of money, he had had trouble finding a decent headgear.
The solution was to buy a large watermelon at the grocery store, cut it in half and hollow out one half.
The fit was then frighteningly similar to the helmet used by the police at the time.
He elegantly camouflaged the green color of the half melon under a few coats of black Bengal varnish.
When he also wore a moustache and dark sunglasses, he was as good a traffic officer as any.
Even Akken, who was anxious by nature and skeptical about the whole project, thought he could succeed if the evening was dark and the weather bad enough.

To give Kulelynet further authority as a traffic officer, Tobben provided two walkie-talkies that his father used during the moose hunt.
Kulelynet would carry one on his person and we would keep the other hidden in a bush further up Nordbergveien to answer calls if some obstinate driver wanted to know how fast he was going.
The icing on the cake was that Adolf, Tobben’s dog, would be on duty with Kulelynet.
Adolf wasn’t exactly something to brag about, he was of indeterminate breed and neither trained nor well-groomed, but strapped to a gray wool blanket with Staten written on it in big red letters, he could pass for a service dog.

The opportunity presented itself on the first Saturday in December.
The weather was miserable and it was snowing horizontally.
At 22:15, Kulelynet had lined up and was waiting for its first victim together with Adolf.
It didn’t take long for a blue and white Opel Rekord to drive past.
Kulelynet, with Adolf in tow, jumped out into the road and signaled to the driver to stop.
The driver panicked when he suddenly saw a traffic officer in the middle of the road, slammed on the brakes and skidded with a crash into the curb next to Kulelynet.
Kulelynet held down the transmit button on his walkie-talkie to demonstrate to us in the bush how this should be done.
“That’s quite a feat, man. You drive like a pig, so to speak. I’ll let it pass that you reek of alcohol, but my colleagues a little further up the road have measured you at 65 km/h and that’s 15 km/h too fast. I think they’re going to have to pay 200 kroner to the state coffers.” – Kulelynet was strict!
“But officer, you can’t think much of it, it’s only three weeks until Christmas and all that, you know” – replied the gentleman in the car in a thin nervous voice.
“Then you’ve come out for the right man at the right time” – replied Kulelynet.
“We have a lottery going on, you see, to finance a small Christmas party at the chamber. I have a lot of tickets in this Santa hat. If you draw a winning ticket, you’ll get a fine of 100 kroner if you settle in cash” – Kulelynet held the Santa hat up to the window of the Opel and the guy inside the car reached out and pulled a ticket from the hat and gave it to Kulelynet.
“Now you were lucky, I think you drew a winning ticket” – Kulelynet shouted through the snowdrift.
The driver was faster than Lucky Luke, pulled a hundred from his wallet and shoved it into Kulelynet’s jacket pocket before disappearing with spinning wheels.

Kulelynet was ecstatic on the walkie-talkie.
“You see how easy it is guys, we should have started this a long time ago when we could get drunk every weekend” – he cheered.
Drunk was probably the word.
In retrospect, it was probably Kulelynet’s suggestion that alcohol might be involved that paralyzed most people, not the claim that they had been driving too fast.
Getting caught for drunk driving with the prospect of 21 days on the dole and loss of social esteem was probably a far greater threat than a paltry speeding ticket for brave citizens of Western Canada.

Kulelynet’s police work was lucrative; it took no more than 40 minutes before the target of NOK 1,000 was reached, and only one of the people stopped remarked that this was a strange check.
Kulelynet was quickly on the walkie-talkie and reported that there was a Protestant in the depot.
Akken was excited about the progress and wanted more money in the till and threw himself over the microphone.
“What are you saying, colleague,” the boor denied that he had broken the posted speed limit. He was driving at 80, he did, cut the signs off his car and put him in irons and we’ll take him to the chamber” – Akken roared.
“He’s giving up now, black Kulelynet, he’s even tipping us 50 and paying 250 kroner just to get away!”

But how long was Adam in paradise?
The session was to take an unexpected turn.
A blue Mercedes skidded into Nordberveien and continued down the entire width of the road.
Inside, a familiar figure clung to the steering wheel – it was Kulelynet’s father.
Kulelynet didn’t see who it was until it was too late and he had stopped the car.
The father was beyond drunk, we could hear it in the walie-talkie.
In addition to being beyond drunk, he was beyond relieved in the midst of intoxication.
He thought that one hundred and one was out when he saw a police-like figure in front of the car, but when he discovered that it was his own son who was up to no good, he was jubilant.
“You’re a fool and a nuisance” – he roared, but for once I’m glad it’s you.
I assume there are more idiots around in the bushes, get them all together and we’ll go home and have a good time, it’s on me, drink until the bottles are empty guys”.

No one was late to ask and after a couple of minutes, five of us plus Adolf were sitting in the Mercedes heading for home to Kulelynet.
“Hello, dragon, stay in bed” – his father yelled into his wife’s bedroom.
“I’ll show the younger generation how to fasten it” – he added.
“Bums and drunks and a disgrace to the country, if Tobben’s idiot dog is involved, it will be left on the stairs” – came from inside the bedroom, and that was the last we heard of her.
Kulelynet’s father was in top form and was going to show us a real rampage before he got too drunk to walk on two.
He went down into the basement and came up with a solid chain several meters long.
“Dim the lights and follow me,” he said as he made his way down the garden path and headed for a VW Beetle parked across the street next to a lamppost.
“What a wild man,” muttered Kulelynet, “he’s now twisted the chain around the bumper of the bubble and then attached the other end to the lamppost, big things are happening here, boys.
He was right about that.
Kulelynet’s father thought that the neighbor across the street was an intolerable cliché and now he wanted revenge.
“This is the highlight of the evening, boys,” he said when he returned.
He threw himself over the phone and dialed the neighbor’s number.
“Olsen, Olsen some bastards are stealing your car Olsen, they’re stealing your car”.
Olsen didn’t need to be told twice, he was out on the street within a minute or two.
His striped pajama pants protruded from the hem of the coat he had thrown on.
He threw himself into the bubble, turned the ignition key, put in first gear and became one bumper poorer, the whole neighborhood heard it. Just then, Kulelynet’s father picked up the phone once again and called the police.
“Help, help, there’s a cheeky guy flying down the street here wearing only a coat and pajamas, I think he must have lost his mind and he’s driving a Volkswagen without a rear bumper, maybe it’s a flasher” – he triumphantly told us when he hung up.

We retreated to the basement room.
Kulelynet counted up the cash register and noted that he had received NOK 1,250.
By a show of hands, it was decided that Kulelynet’s father should receive 250 of them in recognition of his outstanding efforts and that NOK 1,000 should be used up as quickly as possible at the Christmas party of the century and that Kulelynet’s father should be invited as a guest of honor.
He, in turn, signed off by singing two verses of CC Rider before letting Adolf into his wife’s bedroom and wishing him goodnight!