Cops

I was taking Dad to the airport in Prague yesterday morning. When we pulled onto the highway out of Zlin I realized that I hadn't bought a highway sticker yet.

"Shit,"; I said. "I haven't bought a highway sticker yet."
Dad said: "Are you gonna go back?"
I said: !No, it's only 4.30. What I'll do is I'll pull over at the first gas station and buy one. God. Do they sell highway stickers on the highway itself? Maybe they don't. Maybe they only sell them before you get to the highway?"
Dad: "Surely they do."
Me: "WEll I hope so. I guess I'll find out."
an hour later, I'm still driving, having come across only one gas station, and that was closed down and made into a rest area sans toilet. I see a gas station in the distance. I pull off the exit and over. It's 5.30. Several cars are parked at some of the tanks, including a big police van--the type they use when they are out on the highway nabbing people for not having highway stickers. The cops themselves are inside.

Me: "Damn, there's the cops. Good thing I stopped. I guess I'll get some gas here. "
I get the gas and Dad goes into pay for it. I go in and buy a ten day highway sticker. Then I go downstairs to take a much needed leak. I return to my car. Dad puts the sticker on. The cops are gone. I pull away to leave and behind the gas station, there they ARE!!! Standing outside their van. They immediately JUMP in front of me holding out their little stop sign. "Shit, they're pulling me over", I say. (Probably unnecessarily.)

The cop walks over and inspects my new-bought sticker.

He walks to the window and demands all my documents: driver's license, proof of insurance, title of the car, Dad's passport, my passport. Then he asks me if I have some Czech ID because I guess he doesn't want to accept my American passport as ID or something. I show him my green trvaly pobyt book. He looks at it and says 'Do you live in Horni Jasenka, Vsetin?'
"yes'. I say.
"Hmmm...that is very good, very good. I know Vsetin well, very well." (All of this is in Czech, of course. He has a weird accent for me, a Brno accent, I guess, since we're only about 20 kms from Brno; so he's' a little hard to understand, and I start feeling like he's a Nazi toying with me. I'm so nervous I'm shaking.

Then he says: "You need a sticker to drive on a highway. You drove here without a sticker didnt' you? And you just bought that sticker here."

I reply, doing my best Jon Lovitz pathological liar impression: "actually....I didn't drive on the highway....yeeehhhh..that's the ticket...noooooo...nooooo....I drove the other way! Yeeeahhhh.... "(thinking, he was inside the gas station--he'll never prove that I didn't come some other way! Genius!! Got him on a technicality I do!)

He looks at me and says: "Well, that's very interesting because there is only one way to get to this gas station; and that's from the highway. It's the only road here. Now, do you still assert that you didn't take the highway here?"

I shake my head, thinking, damn, I need a lawyer or something . He repeats the question. I shake my head again.

Then he says: "Well, that will be 5000 crowns." This happens to be exactly how much I put in my wallet when I left. Plus I have some change. I probably have 5700 crowns in my wallet.

Me: (gasping) "I don't have 5000 crowns on me!" (I give my most distressed, now what the hell am I going to do, am I going to be arrested? look.

He wanders around and looks at the sticker again, inspecting it very closely. I figure(now) that he realizes he's shit out of luck: I don't have 5000 kc and he can't really fine me for not having a sticker when I have one now, can he?

He comes back. And says. "WEll, this time I'll let you go. Because I know Vsetin well. You are lucky you are from Vsetin. But next time you drive on the highway without a sticker, I'll take your license. Because that will mean that you don't know the law." I refrain from pointing out how illogical this statement is.

Me: "he's letting me go."

I drive off, shaking in fear for about the next 10 kms.