Parody
Police have been criticized for overreacting when a Danish mother left her baby in its stroller on the sidewalk outside the New York restaurant where she was eating. —News...
...The arresting officers have been reassigned and are now on desk duty, their latte privileges removed until a task force can look into the matter...
...If any peace officer stumbles upon a Swedish child tanning or roasting in such a manner, the officer is to leave the infant alone, unless an excessive amount of tar is building up around the baby...
...Apparently it is normal in France to leave a child at a bakery or patisserie or horse butcher for hours at a time, while the attending parent either shops, naps on a park bench, or meets another adult at a pre-arranged site for what the French call a "cinq a sept...
...In addition, all officers should be advised that most French children start drinking wine in their mothers' wombs, so no baby holding French citizenship should be brought in for unlawful use of alcohol, and no French adult can ever be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor...
...The arresting officers forcibly removed the perpetrator, now being referred to as Bebe Pierre...
...This was, we are now told by the State Department, a faux pas...
...The French government is in an uproar and is threatening to withdraw the Statue of Liberty from New York Harbor...
...French Babies: Several weeks ago, a squad car was dispatched from the 8th Precinct when a report was phoned in of an enfant wearing a small blue beret romping around in the window of Frangoise's Bakery on Hudson Street...
...Swedish Babies: The State Department's Scandinavian desk has advised us that it is the cultural custom of average Swedish parents to leave their baby or babies naked out on the sidewalk in summer, particularly on hot, sunny days...
...Parody POLICE BULLETIN TO: ALL NEW YORK CITY POLICE OFFICERS FROM: ONE POLICE PLAZA SUBJECT: INFANTS OF FOREIGNERS After meeting with several officers of the United States Department of State, the New York City Police Department is issuing this bulletin...
...Italians take the month of August off and it is customary for them to leave their children outside either a cafe or a restaurant while they have lunch...
...In addition, State has indicated that French parents tend to be haughty and superior when placed under arrest, and it is not unusual for them to write plays or novels while detained in their cells for two days...
...there has been no outcry thus far from the Italian government, as it has changed hands three times since the above baby was taken into custody...
...Swedes will often lay their infants down on the hottest portions of the asphalt and then disappear to Greece or Spain for weeks at a time, hoping that, if and when they return, their children will be tanner, blonder, and more Swedish than when they left...
...Italian Babies: If any officer of the law stumbles upon an Italian infant napping, snoozing, or otherwise sleeping outside, he or she is to leave that child alone...
...As the typical Italian lunch often lasts five hours or more, it is to be assumed that the baby in question has been fed by either a pedestrian or a local shopkeeper and is napping after having consumed pasta, bread, soup, a second dish of either fish, chicken, or meat, accompanied by a side dish or "contorni," as well as mineral water and dessert...
...Several weeks ago, a "Baby Maria" was removed from the shade of a fire hydrant outside a restaurant on the Upper West Side...
...News item...
Vol. 2 • June 1997 • No. 37
