“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
There is a police school in the village of Aljezur. I know that now. But some time back I didn't. Else I would have been better prepared, or not. When Djinga and I are just about to cross the small bridge that leads into the village, the traffic starts being somewhat gooey so I pick up my phone to give Manni a call. Traffic jam I'm guessing, a broken down truck blocking the bridge.
"Ha! They've not seen me this time!" I'm kidding with my friend on the phone as a police jeep is rushing past with siren wailing and blue lights flashing. Still talking, I casually realize a police officer coming down the road with a bit of a serious face on. 'Stressful job...' I'm thinking for a moment as I become clear that he's aiming for us actually. Still with the phone on my ear and more or less talking to my mate, I'm reeling down the window as his grumpiness bends down and points to the right side behind the truck on the bridge. I still assume he's regulating the traffic.
As he turns around to guide me to the designated spot, though some programmed reactions are triggered as I finish the call abruptly and chuck the phone down into the legroom whilst putting on my seatbelt quickly as if we wouldn't have seen it before. 'This is not a traffic issue, this is a large-scale road check...' it's dawning on me. And I'm the lucky winner. The price money is substantial, as the officer explains, who is now getting a bit more confident and even a little friendly. Maybe it's the result of the bit of Portuguese I speak or of my good mood from the wine we had for lunch just before that makes him go easy with me.
He finds I violated three traffic rules. 'You could have found more,' I'm thinking as he's listing the phone (which apparently pissed him right off), the seatbelt, and the missing warning sign on my bike rack. Each of these violations may be fined with 120-600 Euros, he says. I feel as if he explains me the rules of a game we are going to play together. Before I'm done with the maths in my head, he already backs down on the seatbelt. Fair play, they're never using them, too. As the game goes on, he gets out his course book, proving his numbers were right and I am delighted he does that effort. He's no less delighted as I tell him that I'm living on a 30 Euro weekly budget these days. Now we both know, that no money is going to be exchanged on the spot but the game is on so we've gotta keep playing. He fills in some forms whilst continuing with the next rules. The driving license he asked me for will be kept safely until I pay the fine. 'You can keep it,' is my first thought. I struggled to find it anyway because nobody ever wants to see it and moreover, it's a fair bit cheaper to just get a new one back home.
"But then I can't drive legally anymore," I reply, sensing a flaw in the rules. But he will make sure that I can, providing me with a surrogate document, valid no less than six months. At this point I'm sure that the pretty much brandnew driving card I got made last year and myself are never going to meet again.