I had a date with Isabel the other night.  I picked her up and we headed to a nearby restaurant for supper.  A couple of blocks from her house, the police had set up a checkpoint…

Of course, they quickly started blowing their whistles and waved me over. 

As Isabel has said more than once…I’m “dulce” (sweet) for the police here.  Basically it means that they get pretty excited when they see me coming.  I thought with my new truck, I’d be past all of this.  My papers are in order…both my headlights work…the serial number on my motor matches the serial number on the truck…  I wondered what in the world they’d get me for this time (other than my slightly destroyed driver’s licence…but more on that later). 

As it turned out, I only had a licence plate on the back of my truck…not on the front.  But there’s no place to put one on the front, I argued.  Doesn’t matter, was the response.  It’s an “infraction”.  No matter that lots of people have drawings of their licence plates taped to their back window…  Off we went to transito…the transit police station.

I leaned over to Isabel and motioned to the policeman in my backseat.  “Romantic, eh?”  I know how to treat a girl right.  She just laughed and said, “You warned me that these things always happen to you.”  That’s true…I did.  Then I asked her if she really understood what she was getting herself into.  She laughed again and said that she’d always prayed that God would give her a relationship where she could be a help the other person. 

Ha.  Probably one of the most ironic (and entertaining) statements ever made.  “What I did today: helped keep boyfriend out of jail…”.

So we arrived at transito (with our policeman buddy) and went to talk to the lady who was in charge that night.  An added problem was my aforementioned, “slightly destroyed” driver’s license.  See, here’s the problem.  It went through the wash a few months (year) ago and the water got into the laminated part and wrecked the picture (and everything else).  You can still tell that I’m a gringo (and to my thinking that should be enough).  However, most police officers seem to disagree. 

Up until now I’ve been able to argue my way out of these things.  Plus, Isabel had called her brother-in-law (who’s a Major in the police force here) and he assured us that this was a minor thing and that they should let us go with just a warning.

The lady police officer told us that they would be impounding my truck for the night and that I’d have to return the next day with my front licence plate.  And of course, I’d have to pay for “parking” my truck on their lot. 

I’ve been down this road before (sadly), and I really, REALLY didn’t want to get my truck impounded (again).  Isabel talked and argued with lady, but there was no budging her.  So once again we called Isabel’s brother-in-law.  He asked to speak with whoever was in charge (above this lady) and Isabel handed the phone over.  A few minutes later this gentleman returned the phone and with a smile and polite “No problem.” he told us we could leave. 

He went back into the office (we were waiting outside) to retrieve my driver’s license and registration.  I made a face and a “Ha ha!” comment towards the original lady’s office window but then realized that there were a half dozen other police officers standing around watching us and figured it would be best if I just kept my comments to myself until we left the property.

Which we quickly did.  Later that night as I was driving Isabel home, we drove past another checkpoint.  I saw the officer look in my direction, but before he could do anything, I just sped up and didn’t make eye contact.  Isabel started laughing, but I told her they only get one opportunity to drag me off to jail a night.  After that I get a free ride.

So having a girlfriend with a brother-in-law who’s a police officer is a handy thing.  Her sister’s a lawyer too…

I say, bring in on baby!

Tomorrow I really need to get that licence plate put on the front of my truck.  And get a new driver’s licence.  Tomorrow for sure…or maybe Monday…