I've caught wind of, and witnessed, a few people out there that don't appreciate what I'm doing. In fact, instead of being simply neutral and paying no heed to my travels or ignoring my posts on social media, they've taken and active role in either telling me: "You must be running from something", or that I shouldn't be living the way I live, or that I'm living a selfish lifestyle. They think I'm 'cheating the game.' There are people that actually relish me having mishaps and making mistakes. In short: they like watching me fail. When I have a bad time, it brings them joy.
You know who you are. I know who many of you are too. Luckily for you critical few, I have a story that can help you rest easy. You can take solace in the fact that my life does have downturns and isn't as rose-colored as I may make it seem.
The Stakes
Living like this requires a strict adherence to frugality. I need to know at all times what kind of financial toll every meal or meeting may take. I need to know where I'll be getting resources and for what costs. Thinking 2 steps ahead can help me budget easier and it can earn me another meal. For example:
I met with a Bunk-A-Biker friend for lunch. I had 2 coffees with the lunch and toward the end of the meal I started to get really thirsty. I was going to a museum afterward, the Soumaya Museum, and I found out there was a convenience store 2 blocks away from it.
I decided: Instead of paying for water at a premium here at the Cafe, I'll wait until I'm at the museum, park, and I'll get a water at the convenience store. It will be 10 pesos for a large bottle instead of 45 pesos for a regular one. It will earn me 3 TACOS-WORTH of pesos just to wait another 10 minutes to get a larger bottle of water.
I did just that. I paid for lunch, said goodbye to Jorge, and rode to the museum. I found a parking spot and went to get water. I came back to find a police officer on his radio monitoring my bike. Under his arm were a collection of license plates. Why is this relevant?
A few weeks back, I'd asked if it was okay to park my motorcycle outside of my hostel and I was told no, they would remove my license plate and I'd have to go downtown to the station to get it back after paying a fine. Because of this, I knew exactly what this officer was doing. He was taking plates off of illegally parked vehicles.
The Layout
Take a look at this google street view shot to understand the layout. Don't move the camera, it's going to be facing right down the street.
To the left and farther down the street: you'll see an odd-looking building overhanging the street covered in hexagonal shapes. That is the Soumaya Museum where I'd wanted to go.
To the right: you'll see a series of concrete pylons that separate bicycles from the road. Imagine there were no bicycles there. Imagine there being one motorcycle there, parked, inside the pylons.
Further down the road to the right: You can see a red pipe that's used for firetrucks in the event of an emergency. It's more or less a fire hydrant. The curb in front of it is effectively a fire lane.
A $200 Bottle of Water
I almost ran into oncoming traffic to cross the street to get to the officer. I ran up to him and I asked him what the trouble was, this conversation was all going to be in Spanish.
He told me that the motorcycle was illegally parked and he would have to take my license plate. I begged him not to do so. He said he'd already made the report in his phone's app (a ticketing app) and that he'd have to either take that or my driver's license.
I motioned to the motorcycle right beside mine and asked what the deal was. I told him that there was no issue with the bike parked there, no one else was there but him, it was out of the way, and I had only just been there for a few minutes. I also made a bullshit claim that I'd just got to Mexico and was still learning the ropes of driving in the city. This wasn't a good excuse, but maybe enough to earn sympathy points.
He motioned to the fire hydrant down the road and said that it was a fire lane. Where I was parked was dangerous. As you can clearly see in the Google Maps Street View, there is no marking for no parking and no one seemed to give a shit when that shot was taken.
I fashioned my license plate with special screws so it couldn't be stolen as easily as a real plate. He told me that he would have to take my drivers license instead and he would give me an address to go downtown to pay and get it back.
I started to panic. I'd have no idea when it'd be available for me to pick up. I only have so many days left in Mexico City. My hands started to shake. My voice was also probably shaking. The policeman had me dead to rights and he knew he had power over me. I was fucked.
Instead of getting into the details of how long it would take to get my license back, I made the mistake of asking what my other options were. He told me that if I were to pay 3,500 pesos on the spot, he would let me go.
WITHOUT EVEN THINKING, only focusing on how to get out of this predicament the fastest way possible, I ponied up the dough and handed him roughly $200 USD in Mexican pesos in cash.
What is that worth? About 3 weeks' worth of meals. It's about 1-2 weeks worth of lodging. It's 2 crazy-ass drunken nights out on the town. Well to me at that time, it was worth getting out of this situation. That feeling would soon change.
He then showed me his phone and motioned to him 'cancelling' out his case, proving that there would be no documented infraction since I'd paid him in cash.
This all happened as I was in a mental state of panic. It happened in less than 2 minutes.
The Critic Returns
It wasn't until he walked away that it all set in. It was a lot of money. I got absolutely fucked by this cop. I punched my motorcycle seat, the soft cushion absorbing the blow, and I stared at the ground. I was wide-eyed and filling up with rage. Again, as you may have learned from my blog on my anger issues, this rage isn't aimed at the cop, the city, the country, or anything else. It's aimed at me. Me for being too stupid, naïve, and immature to combat this situation and deal with the consequences. Maybe I was caught at a bad time mentally. Maybe I am really as stupid as I think I am.
You wouldn't have lost all of that money if you just went downtown later.
You overpaid. It's probably nowhere near as much to get the ticket.
It's Friday night. That cop is going to take his friends out for drinks ON YOU.
You're too fucking stupid to be on this trip. People walk all over you.
This cop, and many others, will continue to do this to other gringos because of your shitty mistakes. Other tourists will suffer because of your stupidity. They now know that this tactic works on white morons like you, you fucking twat.
Just writing about this makes my blood boil. I'm obviously still not over it.
The Real Cost
I then found out that I did, in fact, overpay by quite a bit. "Why didn't you call me?" say my Mexican friends in the city. "Why didn't you let me know what happened? I could've helped!" The Critic LOVES to hear shit like this. Look, more avenues I could've taken that would've improved this situation.
Also, I spoke in Spanish to the cop right away. What a mistake. I could've played dumb, spoke English, and drove away. I could've really tried to get the cop to lose his patience with me over it. It's worked before. WHY DID I NOT EVEN TRY.
There are so many things I could've done. I'm now going to have to pull funds out of an ATM sooner. Effectively, I lost all that cash AND extra cash to a bank for another withdraw and currency conversion fee. How awesome.
So there it is. Again, for those 'critical few' of you out there watching and waiting for me to slip up, that was one example. There will be more. I know you're all grinning reading this, and it makes you happy to know I'm not only angry and not enjoying my trip, but my trip will now effectively be shortened because of the financial loss.
You can The Critic in my head have that in common.
-JT
3/27/2022