Fan Fiction ❯ Cops and Donuts ❯ One-Shot

Cops & Donuts

Cops like eating donuts.

True.

Cops like eating donuts in public.

False.

My pal Officer Kyle (whose last name has been omitted to protect those who were mercilessly beaten with a nightstick this week) refuses to be seen eating donuts in public.

"Confirms the stereotype", he says. "Can't have that", he says.

We've all seen Hollywood's representations of policemen as slow-moving, donut-scarfing, lazy-assed half-wits. Think less Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, and more Carl Weathers in Die Hard.

The source of this stereotype is an ingenious business play by donut shops such as Canadian institution, Tim Hortons. On-duty cops get all the free coffee they can drink. A cup of joe for Joe the Cop. Keeps them awake during a long night-shift. And a nice cheap way to get the cops to protect your store 24-hrs a day.

It's also a generous reward for a group of professionals who, out of the public eye, are stepping through crack-houses, warehouses, and whorehouses, only to be shot at, stabbed at, swung at, and sworn at by the very people they are trying to protect. If after a long thankless day of scaring off rioters and hooligans, and before setting to the task of plucking syringes and switchblades from his boot-soles, one of these overworked crime-fighters takes a moment out of his day to enjoy a tasty donut...he is ridiculed.

As if no one else has ever eaten a fucking donut.

I think the bad donut rap can be spun to help, not hinder, the war on crime. A slight revamp of our current judicial and penal system.

Commit a crime, do some time. This basic premise remains the same.

But there will be some changes.

At the court-hearing of a soon to be convicted felon, the judge, jury, attorneys, and attending court audience will all be treated to free coffee. If the criminal (henceforth to be referred to as Morty) is found guilty, he will be sentenced in blocks of time ranging from one to thirteen years. The maximum penalty will be called, in whispers, "a baker's dozen".

Suppose Morty earns himself a thirteen-year stay for beating up his brother-in-law, kidnapping a few orphans, and plowing through a Volkswagen dealership with a street sweeper. Morty is cuffed and transported immediately to one of the nation's new facilities.

In his cement cell, Morty will spend most of the day reading, sleeping, drinking unlimited cups of coffee, or sharing quality time with his cellmate "Long John". The rest of the day is spent taking care of important prison business...

At 1am, a donut is dropped into the cell through a small opening in the ceiling. At 2am, two donuts are dropped into the cell. At 3am, 4am and 5am... three, four, and five donuts are dropped into the cell. And so on. Morty and John must eat all of their donuts by midnight. If they don't, the next day and every subsequent day of failure will be counted on a 24-hour clock, making the final hour of the day a very urgent hour of donut-eating. Every seventh day, Morty and John spend the entire day making donuts in the massive prison bakery.

If Morty misbehaves, he spends a day in solitary confinement; also called "the donut hole". In the Hole, a donut hole is dropped into the cell every minute for the duration of a prisoner's stay. The prisoner cannot leave the Hole unless he has eaten everything, or until he is smothered under piles of sugary-dough goodness.

By the time Morty is released from prison he will weigh 500 pounds and his skin will have a white powdery tint. His veins will coarse with equal parts blood and Bavarian cream. He will never ever commit another crime. He will never ever mention the word donut, especially to a policeman.

And this is how we will gradually eliminate crime from our society and put all police officers out of work.

In case you were wondering what happens to Long John, convicted murderer and occasional shoplifter... jelly filling lethal injection.