Number Six, Please Turn to the Right part 1

On television, whenever the police need to put a suspect in a lineup, the cops always seem to have a steady supply of other derelicts in lock-up that they can use as extras.

In Hong Kong, either they have a different way of doing things or they simply don't have an abundent supply of middle-aged white couples in lock-up ready to serve as extras.

Friday afternoon, just as we were preparing to leave work, a colleague approached Julie and me and said "Have I got an opportunity for you two."

We of course said yes.

Apparently, several weeks ago, a middle-aged white couple skipped out on paying their taxi fare. Things went from bad to worse, and before you know it, Whitey's in handcuffs. Fastforward to this past Saturday and it was time for the witness to identify the scofflaws.

That's were Julie and I, several of our colleagues, and a handful of other people we just met come into the picture.

We spent the better part of the day waiting for the slow machinations of justice to do whatever it is that happens behind closed doors down at the Justice Department.

The good news is that while we waited and waited we got free snacks courtesy of Hong Kong taxpayers (spending limit: US$3.50). After what seemed like an interminable wait and after making our way en masse through about half a dozen waiting rooms, it was go time.

The women went first. An hour later, it was the men's turn. Nine of us men were led into the lineup room. Yup, the front wall was a one-way mirror; nope, there were no lines painted on the wall behind us.

After we all took our position, there was one empty spot. Several minutes later, a side door opened and in walked a pair of police officers escorting a middle aged white guy. As he was led to the empty spot, the other nine of us were all thinking the same thing "Dude, it would have been a whole lot simpler just to pay the taxi fare."

Appreantly, getting ten middle age white guys in the room was a herculean enough task as it was. Getting then to have roughly the same body types, height, and hair color was too much to ask. We were a pretty diverse looking group.

In order to elimnate height as a variable, we were instructed to sit.

In order to eliminate clothing as a variable, a police woman distributed heavy wool blankets that had been used for who-knows-what previous purpose. Julie said hers smelled like urine. That sounds about right.

As if things weren't weird enough already, things were about to get really surreal.