I love Colombia, but I just can’t get past men who use every single tree as a urinal. I have kids and a spouse who are traumatized by the number of male organs they have seen since they have been in Colombia. On the one hand I can understand the men, because when you’re out and about it’s just so easy to pick a tree like a dog picks out a fire hydrant. But in most modern societies we have given up acting like animals and created toilets and urinals with flushing water.
In current Colombian culture it is apparently still acceptable for men to continue this practice, and so it is up to the government to take a stand and change the culture if they want to be viewed as a modern state and not as a third-world country.
Let’s move on to the question of a solution, as it would be foolish of me to point out the things that I do not like without coming up with a way to solve the problem.
Assuming that the current government needs additional income to better pay its police force, then we can give an incentive to the transit police to be on the lookout for people pissing on trees. Upon apprehending a culprit the police would immediately take them to the station where they would be charged with public indecency. The person can immediately pay a fine of COP50,000 ($25) and will be released with a note on his record. Hopefully this person won’t do it again because the fees will be doubled every time they get caught. But what if the person who gets caught is a vagrant and does not have the money? Stay tuned for future articles on how to clear the city of vagrants. My next article will also discuss what would happen to the transit policeman if he decides to take a bribe from the culprit.
The transit policeman will be rewarded at the end of the month with COP25,000 ($13) for each offender he catches. Assuming that the officer catches 10 of these public urinators a month he will take home an additional $250,000 ($130) a month. With a single stroke we have created additional income for the police department and for the transit policeman. We have also forced this person to think twice before pulling his pecker out of his pants. In a year the police department would have several vans roaming the city to process the individuals and collect the fees at point of the infraction.
And the rest of us can walk Colombia’s streets with one less thing to worry about.
