Waltham Abbey, England
While many of us will make our annual empty New Year's resolutions next week,
45-year-old Paul Crick will ring in 2014 on a court ordered 5-year-plan for not being an asshole.
Over the last 16 months, Crick dialed 999 (the English equivalent of 911)
over 170 times. That by itself is bad enough, but Crick often added to his abuse of emergency services by
loudly hurling a stream of obscenities at paramedics when they arrived at his residence.
This was enough to cause magistrate Russell Pearson to
hand down a sentence as bizarre as it is harsh. From now until December 16, 2018, Crick must not:
-Contact the emergency services via 999, save when genuinely in need of assistance of those services (Which is pretty much expected of everyone, but whatever).
-Remain upon any premises for use of the general public, including premises under the control of the N.H.S. (National Health Service), if asked to leave by a member of staff (Once again, this pretty much applies to everyone).
-Use threatening, insulting, or abusive words or behavior towards any person or persons not of the same household as himself, to include employees of the emergency services (People who part of his household, however, would appear to be fair game).
-Be verbally abusive, shout, swear or use foul language in any public place, or within his home address such as is likely to be overheard by, and such as is likely to cause distress to any other person outside his home address. (That's right; the guy can't even swear loudly in his own home. If Paul has am Xbox Live account, this could prove to be very problematic).
As much as Paul may have brought this sentencing down upon himself, I do feel little sympathy for him with regards to the 'no swearing loudly in your own home' part of it.
Due to being a Comcast customer as well as a University of Kentucky sports fan, I can sometimes be heard screaming obscenities within the confines of my home throughout the evening. I fear that without having this cathartic outlet, Paul may turn to more self destructive means of releasing his anger...like switching to U-Verse or cheering only for whomever is ranked the highest in whatever sport he follows.
To Paul's credit, however, he does appear to be taking his sentence seriously. He did not object to any of the terms, has
entered an alcohol treatment program, and his currently
seeing a psychiatrist.
As a test of his new resolve, Paul was also ordered by the judge to pay approximately $325 in court costs.
Which I'm sure he was just $#&%ing thrilled about paying.
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