High-tech law enforcement

Several years ago I worked at the city museum of Skövde creating the texts and printed materials for an exhibition about the history of the city. One of the artifacts we had lying around was a book where the authors had interviewed the elder residents of the city during the early years of the 20th century and gathered their stories. Sort of a folklore project.

There were a lot of good stories in that book, and one that has always stuck with me concerned a farm hand who was notorious for being the archetypal big, ugly brute who started fights whenever possible.

The story goes something like this:

After the harvest has been brought in, it is time for the customary celebration, and our protagonist—along with everybody else attending—has managed to get himself into a highly lubricated state. Naturally, a mêlée breaks out and the police are called.

It so happens that the local police force has just the same week been equipped with the latest in cutting-edge law enforcement technology: The baton.

So one of the police officers sneaks up behind our protagonist, who is busy beating the tar out of another farm hand, gets a good, two-handed grip on his baton and whacks our protagonist over the head as hard as he can.

To the police officer’s dismay, our protagonist does not sag into a limp heap, but rather shakes his head and turns around, glares bleary-eyed at the police officer, notices the baton, and yells, “Why the hell are you fighting with sausage?”