the man with the newspaper

[the watcher]

A man comes out of the store with his newspaper. He is just about to unfold
it when a fire truck roars past, sirens wailing, the whole Keystone Kops
thing. The next moment an ambulence whizzes past with it's sirens wailing.
"Oh shit," thinks the man, "somebody is in serious trouble".

He walks on up the street and sees that both vehicles have stopped at a
house that is on fire. The paramedics are running to help a woman in
distress. "What a country we have," thinks the man, "what professional
services we have."

As he is getting closer he sees a large, burly, fireman stomp out of the cab
of the fire truck. He waves his arms in a criss cross fashion and the
firemen immediately stop unloading their equipment. The fire chief then goes
to the paramedics, who by this time have the woman on a trolley and are
giving her oxygen. To the man's astonishment, he watches as the paramedics
push the woman off the trolley.

The man is close to the scene now and he can see the smoke beltching from
the windows, flames licking round the eaves, etc. He looks at the woman
lying in the lawn and desperately wants to go and help her. However, this is
such an odd situation that he decides not to get involved. He sees the owner
of the house, in his bare feet, his eyes popping out, yelling at the fire
chief "But I pay my taxes, I pay my taxes." The fire chief shouts back,
"Listen mister, I had it confirmed on the radio just as we arrived, I don't
give a fuck how much you pay in tax, you work for symantec, so you don't get
any help from us."

The man unfolds his newspaper, walks on past and thinks "Ah well, fair's
fair, isn't it".

-the watcher-