Sideswipe: May 2: Police impersonation

Birth jokes push the limit

Allan writes: "I was driving Shirley through Palmerston North today when we passed the birthing centre they're building near the hospital. 'Look,' said Shirley, 'they've nearly finished it. I'd love to go to the open day there.' I looked at her quizzically. 'An open day? At a birthing centre?' Shirley knows me well enough to know my sense of humour, so she ignored that one. Then I started laughing. 'What's funny?' she asked. 'What I want to know is whether on all the exits doors in the birthing centre they'll have a little sign on them, saying Push, Push.' Shirley, who has given birth to four kids, somehow restrained herself from hitting me."

Violent advice

In 1977, Lieutenant Jim Bullard of the Memphis police department published a self-defence manual for women titled Looking Forward to Being Attacked. The idea was that his self-defence skill would make beating up your attacker fun. Or something like that. His tips include: If the perp is after your purse or any personal belongings, let them go. "Defend personally. Don't defend property," he advises. Look for his vulnerable areas - jab him in his Adam's apple, slap your hands against his ears, grab your car key or a ballpoint pen and "scrape them across the assailant's eyes". Or, obviously, "strike at a man's testicles". But Bullard's final piece of advice is quite, er, of its time and place and relates to finding a burglar outside your home. He says: "Warn him first, and then you can take a cannon and blow him into the next county - 99.6 per cent of the time you scream when someone's outside, warn him, he'll run. If he doesn't, you can legally assume he's coming in to kill you. A shotgun is the most efficient weapon. Kill him. You're doing society a favour when you do do it. I've seen those that didn't do it, and it's a very sad case."

Vegan's strange dream

"I once observed a vegan girl under the effects of ketamine," Matt Orbin writes on Quora. "The doctors had decided that she would have her arm reset, so they put her under. Laughing, deliriously, she said, 'I love butter so much! I want butter. I want to jump off the Eiffel Tower, into a pool of butter. I want to go zip-lining off of the Eiffel Tower, and I want to go canoeing in the lake of butter underneath!' The rest of us observing were laughing too, she hadn't eaten butter in years!"