I Paid off the Police

I am embarrassed to admit it but I bought my way out of a traffic ticket yesterday. Actually I was forced to do it. I was stopped by "Transito" (a mandatory police stop) and the officer (If i can call him that) got me out of the car, wanted to see all my documents - which
I had in order, and he made up some bogus charge that my insurance paperwork said "2006" on it. That is when the document was created and it clearly said that I was insured through March! He said it was wrong because it didn't have 2007 on it. I showed him that but he didn't care, I was a white American with $$ sign on my forehead. He kept saying, "what are we going to do about this?" I kept trying to wait him out but finally he had to ask me how much I would pay him not to write a ticket. With my classic Ogilvie tongue, i disrespectfully gave him all the money I had - 4000 colones which is a little less than $8.

I would rather pay the a real traffic fine in the US for $80 than pay $8 like that. It burned me for a while. I am glad I didn't have more money in my wallet.