Mexico, day 3

I wanted to post about Panchos, where our host Jerry took us for dinner. I wanted to show you the fishbowl from which they ladled the tequila. The fishbowl full of rattlesnake.


I wanted to tell you about the social strata at Nowhere Bar, or about the Substitute Pimp at El Squid Roe.

But no. I get to tell you about my interaction with the Mexican Police.

I volunteered to drive home tonight. We got in the car, pulled out of the dirt parking lot through the dirt alley, and got onto Cabo's Main Street. Then lights started flashing behind us. Now, I was definitely sober enough to drive - you know me, I'm far too neurotic to risk driving drunk - but I'd been drinking enough (N>0) that I was worried.

The cop told me that I'd gone the wrong way out of a one way street. This is, I assure you, a bogus charge. First of all, there's only one exit in that lot. Secondly, doesn't a street have to be paved to be a street?

I know enough about negotiation to recognize the maneuvering he was doing. Really, it was rather artful, and I was objectively impressed even as I was made miserable by it. He refused to speak any English, putting me in a position of uncertainty. He kept deferring to his superior, who was standing a few yards away. He took my license away, not for paperwork but for bargaining power. I was kept off-balance the whole time.

The next infraction of which I was informed was that the license plates were ____. Expired, maybe? Improper? Who knows, it was all in Spanish. It doesn't matter, it never mattered. That wasn't the point.

The fine was $80 per infraction. I would have to pay it at the station the next day. Yeah, right.

So I set about my negotiating machinations, tentatively suggesting that we are poor college kids and can't afford $160, that we just want to make things right. Without naming any numbers, I was able to work the cop down to $80.

Fortunately, I had Handloff with me. Handloff was drunk enough that his playing dumb wasn't really an act. Handloff was bold enough to immediately make a more reasonable counteroffer of $10. Handloff was callous enough to risk my license, because it wasn't his license.

So while I worked on cop #1, Hanloff manipulated the superior. His negotiation progressed much more quickly than mine, and I was so eager to get the hell out of dodge that I was glad to accept their terms. In the end, we had to cough up $40 in bribe money, I got my license, and we were on our way.

In conclusion, rattlesnakes make tequila taste delicious.