"...and the law won!"

You might (but probably don't) remember a post I made in April called, “I fought the law…”. Well, as you have probably deduced from the title...it wasn't over! Since it has been MONTHS since the occurance, Barb and I had forgotten about it...until Thursday morning around 10 a.m. I was at the building starting our work day. At that same time, Barb said that all of the sudden she thought someone was trying to knock down our metal front door, because they were "knocking" so hard. Barb opened the door to a police officer asking for ME!!! She told him I wasn't here and he told her that if I didn't arrive IMMEDIATELY, he would put out a warrant for MY ARREST!!!

Time Out!!!

Now you might be wondering at this point in the story, "what in the world has our missionary Shawn Gary done?!" This would be an excellent time to click on the link above ("I fought the law...") and read (if you haven't already), what this mess is all about. It basically boils down to the fact that I wouldn't pay a cop off to get out of a ticket that I was getting for HITTING A CURB!!! I scrapped the curb with my tire (it popped and I had to fix that too!) and the rim left a scratch mark.

To make a long story just a little bit longer, Barb calls me, I come home immediately. When I got out of the car, I went over to shake the cops hand and introduce myself. He was kind and told me I needed to go and take care of the ticket. I explained to him that the cop ("transito", Mexico has various "levels" of police officers) that originally pulled me over wanted money! He then told me that the "transito" cops were greedy, lying, no good, etc, etc. and that the best thing would be to go pay it and not try to pay off a cop, BECAUSE they are greedy and they will charge a lot more than the ticket! I told him the "transito" was only going to charge me $200 pesos ($20 bucks) and then the cop tells me "Uooo you should have paid it!" Once I picked my jaw up off the ground, I took the paper work, got in the car and went to pay the ticket $590 pesos (nearly $60 bucks). Moral of the story, don't hit a curb in Mexico, because no matter how ugly or messed up it is on either side of where you hit it...they will still charge you. Oh yeah, that other thing about the "cops be honest nowadays", well, Mexico missed that memo! I believe and respect our "boys in blue" up north, but done here, well, "just pay it" and "steer clear"!!!