This second set up is not as tragic as the first, but to me very odd and lacking intellectual thought on behalf of the Montreal Police Dept.

It happened at around six A.M. inside the Montreal train station. I was a ripe nineteen years old waiting for my train to take me back to Ottawa after a weekend of adventuresome partying. A blog will be written about that one soon. LOL

It would be a couple of hours before my train would come so I took the time to observe the people from the vantage point of a wooden bench set back from all the action. Men in suits were now coming into the train station carrying brief cases. A hung over looking traveler exclaimed to me, "I hate guys in suits. They're fucking queers." Montreal, LOL , full of freaks.

The men in suits were filing by the unmanned newspaper stand.  The Montreal Gazette was carefully stacked on the floor, three piles, forty or so high. A little wooden table with a little metal bowl was set beside the papers.  It was the honor system, where you placed your quarter in the bowl before taking your paper. How quaint and reassuring to be in a city where this scenario was possible.

Man in suit one, throws a quarter in the bowl takes a paper. Man in suit two, without any change, places a dollar bill in the bowl and takes the quarter. Man in suit three, checks his pockets has no change. Opens his wallet and only has large bills. He picks up a paper and starts to walk away. "Hold on sir. Police Officers, you are under arrest", is shouted across the station. The undercover officers, apprehend the very dangerous criminal and put him in a room where others will process him. I felt so safe, knowing a rag robber was now in police custody.

This went on for some time, I saw five guys get arrested, the bowl had more money in it, than the value of all the papers combined. One well dressed guy even put a five dollar bill in the bowl without removing change, as he glared across the station at the undercover policemen. Previous, client perhaps?

Being a rather curious soul, I approached the undercover officers and asked how long they had been doing this and how many thieves they catch in a typical day. The answer was two weeks and about twenty people. I told the officers it must cost a lot of money to catch these criminals. The officers assured me it did.

Before I excused myself, I explained to the officers that what they were doing was a waste of money and their valuable time. Not impressed they turned to ignore me. With their backs to me I explained to them a wonderful invention that was now available, I know, I saw them in my college. It's called a change machine. You put dollar bills into it and it gives you change.

They take a few more steps away from me. One officer goes to the news stand and counts the change that the last guy in a suit took. I said to the remaining officer, "I bet the cost for one day of this would pay for the machine."

From across the station, I hear, "Lets go Sam, we have another one."