On average, I could care less about the specific purchases most folks make on any given day. Whether it’s a bacon and cheese soaked hamburger/heart attack waiting to happen or some insane snowmobile with more horsepower than an F1 car what people buy is pretty much their own business. Besides, as they will ultimately live or die by their choices they should be able to make them however they see fit. Granted, there are some products whose purchase and use affect the lives of others more than not (see mouthwash, pit stick, Gas-X tablets) I still maintain that it’s not my place to suggest that anyone ever really “needs” to buy anything in particular. Except this once.

The product that caught my eye this day is targeted directly at law enforcement professionals. Now, seeing as how the closest I come to law enforcement professionals is when I drive slowly past them, hands at ten and two, as they write a ticket to the poor schmuck they nailed instead of me, I truly have every reason in the world to heed the voices in my head suggesting “move along, move along, nothing to see here.” I mean I can’t even claim a moral equivalency to those on the beat. The only crime I fight every day is the urge to graze from that conveniently torn open bag of ranch chips lying all seductive and available on the shelf at Wal-Mart. No, I really have no business poking around ads dedicated to police gear.

The thing is, in this case, believing that would have been a huge mistake because I have now seen a product that every smart community should not only endorse wholeheartedly but should consider holding bottle drives or dunk tanks to raise as much money as possible for so we can buy enough of them to outfit every single police officer in North America effectively. What one item could be so earth-shatteringly important to warrant this kind of urgency to purchase? It’s called CoolCop and, I am told, was made by cops, for cops.

The product couldn’t be simpler. It’s more or less it’s a plastic flexi-hose you attach to the air vents of your squad car and then shove down your shirt to cool off quicker and easier. Apparently, wearing body armour and up to twenty-five pounds in gear can be pretty sweaty business and when you’re tooling around for hours in hot climates a problem like this is nothing to sneeze at. Think how uncomfortable and cranky a shirt and tie or a hot blazer can make someone on a torrid summer day. Now imagine that person had access to a gun, taser or nightstick. Are you starting to get the picture? I am 100% in full support of anything that might put the law enforcement personnel driving around my city in a better mood.

While I will admit that seeing my local constabulary cruise about with vacuum hoses hooked near their nipples does seem like something out of RoboCop or maybe even Super Troopers it’s pretty hard to deny the inherent common sense at work here. I mean the cars do have AC so why not find a way to point it where it’s needed the most. And is there any downside to having the boys and girls in blue being calmer and more collected compliments of some new found cool?

As summer approaches we have some important choices to make when it comes to the men and women charged with safeguarding the public good. If we can have those among us that are officially sanctioned to wear guns and carry sticks in a happier and more “cool” mood versus a sweaty, angry version more akin to Vic on The Shield it ought to be reason enough to get some sort of fund raising festival moving pronto. If we hurry we could get CoolCop in every damn police car from here to the tip of Florida by July at the latest. Now that’s a cause worth celebrating. Either that or maybe slushes could become the refreshment of choice versus the old staples of coffee and donuts. Just don’t spill it down your front though.