(More Digression I guess this could be Part 1a)

Here is a link to Part 1

When we got back to Tamarindo Bed and Breakfast after our 2 dives Friday (December 5 2014), we were both just exhausted. The day before on Thursday we had a Very full day too. We took a ferry to Playa. Well we missed the first ferry because of me, but we recovered well enough to both cause issues with each other that we worked through together throughout that day.

Sometimes when I tell people about me and Lindsey, especially to people who never met her or to people who never saw the two of us together, I see that their eyes glaze over when I talk about how perfect things were between us. I guess some things should be evident when 2 people up and decide to get married 18 days after their very first kiss. SO I can understand it to a point! Lindsey was a intense, opinionated woman and I am an intense , opinionated, head-strong man. We had our moments and frustrations with each other. On our best days we were only human. Conflict though for us got re-defined not in terms of how it separated us, but how it could be made to bring us Together. We Both sought compromise and we both valued the bond and the relationship over being right all the time.

We decided that since we got to Playa a bit later (about 9:30am) that we would rent a car. We also decided against sitting thru a 90minute time share sales pitch. We would have saved some money for some tours we wanted to do through some Mayan ruins but the beat down from the salesmen just isn’t worth it. I just hate being hammered by a salesman just to save some money! Every minute with them was a minute wasted on our honeymoon.

We drove to a ruin called Coba and on the way we had the classic “Mexican Cop Experience”. On the highway seemingly at random, and sometimes not even when there was an apparent need for them, you would see a sign with the word “Topes” with a diagram of what looked like raised bumps. So we figured it to mean “speed bumps” and that is what happened when you saw the sign. Always a speed reduction was indicated on the next sign. Well Almost all speed bumps had a sign preceding them……..I am driving a little VW Golf rental and we are listening to Mexican music, laughing and smiling with the windows rolled down. Lindsey was so excited that we were also going to visit our first Cenote together and swim and relax in that underground wonderland that Playa has so many of. Lindsey kept calling it a Coyote lol. So all of the sudden without any Topes sign or speed reduction sign I see a set of the Topes bumps and brake pretty hard and go from 5th gear down to 3rd and then 2nd gear. As I bump bump over them I look to my right and there was a little guard house on the side of the road. Standing just outside is 2 Cops with AR-15 automatic weapons yelling at us to ALTO!

As I am pulling over, I look at Lindsey and roll my eyes and say ‘here we go’. My blood pressure now rocketing thru the roof as the officer pokes his head into the car and asks me in Spanish to show him my drivers license. He then disappears to the back of the car and talks to his partner in an excited tone of voice. He then returns to the passenger window where Lindsey is calmly reclined in her seat. Lindsey taught herself how to speak spanish by reading kids books and listening to kids programming in spanish. When he realizes she can understand him he takes his spanish into hyperdrive that only a native speaker could ever hope to understand. He’s telling me that I had been speeding and driving recklessly.  After I said to him several times “preguntas”, thinking I was saying the word for forgive or pardon me and instead learning from Lindsey that I was saying, “questions”, “questions” lol. It was just like a scene out of a bad tragic comedy, the stereotypical good cop/ bad cop mexican police tale we have all heard of.  He appeared the 3rd time at her window and I offered him 20dollars or over 200pesos to just let us proceed. Lindsey is trying to convince him to talk slower. I could tell her fuse was starting to burn. She did not like the way he was treating me and she knew it was a setup because we really had done nothing wrong. I Was in 2nd gear and there wasn’t the customary sign indicating the Topes. When I showed him the 20dollar bill he waved me off and acted offended and told Lindsey he was the good guy here arguing for us to be let off with just a warning. His buddy at the back of the car was not as good a guy as he was! He disappeared one last time and when he reappeared he said that he had talked his partner out of the ticket and that he thought we should now pay him that 20 dollars because he was a good guy!

This got Lindsey up from the reclining position and she basically said this to him, “listen, here is what’s going to happen. Write us whatever ticket you are going to write. Then we are turning this little rental car around and getting back on the ferry to Cozumel without spending one penny on the mainland. We did not do anything wrong and we were here to spend money and visit the ruins not to be hassled by police, but we are leaving now!”  Holy smokes!
Lindsey had been bullied many times in her life and it really pushed buttons with her and she felt confident because we were together and the being bullied days were behind her.

The fierceness on Lindsey’s face made him back off from the window a bit and he seemed to just deflate and melt as men throughout history have done when women give them “the look”.
I felt a little sorry for him as he lost his nerve and then told Lindsey to Please get out of here and don’t speed anymore and that he was sorry to have delayed us!

I calmly put the car in gear, gave a little wave as I took one more glance at the guy who had just been told off by my wife. I held back my laughter till a few hundred yards were behind us and then we high fived each other and I said “Lindsey we will laugh at this for the rest of our lives we just had “The Mexican Cop Experience”. I knew the rest of the day had to go better.