Thursday,
March 13, 2008
Those Italians: Penchant to Forgive and
Forget is Divine.
The
ANNOTICO Report
This
British Expat Goes from Furious to Fawning over the
Italian Bureaucracy.
Another
amazing thing is that so many complain, BUT THEY STAY
!!!!!!!!!!
Diary: To Err Is Human...
The AmericanMagazine.com
Clare Pedrick,
February 2008
I know Ive been heard to say some unkind things
about my adopted country. Since Im in confession mode, Ill admit that in my darkest moments I have used "
But though I sometimes, complain, there are occasions when I feel an almost
visceral rush of love for this country. Minor twinges of affection tend to
occur at airports where Im always relieved to hear people gabbling away in
Italian on my way back from a trip. And I love it when some of them break into
applause on landing.
But the moment that I fully understood how much I feel for this wonderful,
exasperating place came a few days ago when I found a parking ticket slapped on
my windscreen . The episode certainly didnt start off too well. Furious
that I was being done for 36, I swore loudly, cursing the traffic warden for
being so blind and not seeing my permit which was - er -
not in its usual place on the dashboard but lying on the floor.
Later that day, still very cross, I looked around for the wretched fine so that
I could pay it before I forgot and found myself having to fork out double. But
it was nowhere to be found. In my rage, I must have dropped it on the ground.
Now absolutely seething, I called my husband "
always the butt of my anti-Italian spleen when things go wrong "
and persuaded him to go to the polizia municipales office to get a copy of the fine.
He rang me a little later with more bad news. The fine hadnt
appeared on their records yet, so Id have to wait till a copy arrived by
post, which would cost an extra 14. I was livid. But worse was to come, and I
must admit, it was brave of him to tel l me.
Examining the police computer record, hed spotted another fine, which
would be winging its way through my letterbox in the next week or so. This one
was for a whopping 157. Id driven through a red light, it seemed. They
would also be taking six points off my drivers license.
The air was now blue as I slammed down the phone. Idiotic
Italian police. In all my years driving, I had never gone
through a red light. My husband offered to take me to the police station, where I could see a video clip of the automatic
camera that had snapped me. Grudgingly I agreed, seething that it would mean
missing my class at the gym.
The policeman politely offered me a seat, but I was in no mood to be cajoled.
He asked for my plate number and showed no sign of being ruffled when I tartly
told him that I couldnt remember it and
suggested he look on the computer. I tutted
impatiently as he struggled to pull up the clip on his screen. A colleague had
to intervene, a s he clearly didnt
know what he was doing. At last, up came the picture of my car at a red traffic
light in Spoleto. Then came the second photo, of me
turning right and the traffic light still red.
Aghast, I realized I was now in big trouble. Not only would I have to pay the
fine, but six points would be docked from my license. Which
would mean presenting the said license to the Italian police. Which would mean that they would find out that I have been driving
around for all these years with a British license, instead of getting an
Italian one, as I should have done. I swallowed hard and looked up to
see the policeman smiling. "Youre not Italian, are you Signora? Would
you mind telling me which drivers license you have?"
A British one," I murmured, bracing myself for the inevitable.
He held out his hand to shake mine.
Congratulations! he said, laughing out loud
as his colleague smiled genially. "If you have a foreign license, we
cant ta ke any points
off it. Well done!"
He shook my husbands hand warmly too. He was possibly even happier than we
were that I had managed to beat the system. "And about
that other fine. If you have a permit, it might be worth
contesting," he said, still beaming.
But if I were you," said his colleague, grinning broadly, "I wouldnt say the permit dropped on the floor. It might
be better to say that it was on the dashboard and the traffic warden cant have seen it. After all, were all
human."
The
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