Lollipop Guild

I got lollipop-ped for the first time after 11 months of fearing the inevitable.

This does not mean what you think it means…unless you think it means getting pulled over by the Polizia.  I think everyone knows that feeling you get in your stomach when you see the blue lights behind you, the nervous feeling that you might be in trouble.  This feeling is multiplied by a million when you add the language barrier, the fact that I didn’t have my passport or sojourners permit (I have been told you need to have them with you and that you don’t so I don’t carry them with me so they don’t get stolen!), and that my husband is unreachable in a foreign country.

As I was driving down Hooker Highway, counting the hookers (16-a record high for me!), I noticed the Polizia couldn’t seem to decide which exit to take.  I took my normal exit to the left and noticed the polizia decided to go the same way.  No big deal, right?  Then the polizia passed me on the right in the no passing zone, which didn’t phase me either until I noticed the hand coming out the passenger side window with the dreaded lollipop (the lollipop is a small circular sign on a stick that looks like a big lollipop, one side is red and one side is green.) So I pulled over behind the BMW and rolled down the window.  The first cop just pointed to my cell phone and didn’t say anything to me.  The second one asked me if I was “Americana” and then asked for my papers.  I just pretended that I wasn’t nervous and handed him my driver’s licenses (plural-NATO and California) and then the car registration.  He looked at everything and then asked me to turn on the lights.  He asked me to do this in Italian and I was a bit confused although I understood (YEAH ME!).  I flashed the lights on and off, he handed me my paperwork and I survived my first Lollipop!!