Traffic Police Out In Full Force [Updated]

Yeah. Right. You didn't really believe that, now, did you? If you did, I have swamp land in Florida I'd like to sell you.

I made an impromptu trip downtown yesterday afternoon. I put off going until I can't put off going any longer. It is DH's Birthday today - so I wanted to get a box of those Cuban's he likes so much. [There were none to be found my last trip downtown. There weren't any yesterday, either. Big surprise.] 'S alright, though. He's got lots of presents wrapped on the table ready to surprise him when he wakes up. None of which were purchased here - well, except one - which I paid a small fortune for because that happens to be the going price. He is getting a golf book he's had his eye on, a Hooter's shirt and golf towel [he'll be the only guy on the course with a Hooter's golf towel!], I got him a Rottweiler and Great Dane golf head cover [I thought I ordered a Poodle, too, but apparently that didn't make it - I'll have to get it the next time I'm in the States] and a pink pig putter cover [cute!]... A couple of magazines he likes - some financial type thing and some car review guide [no SI Swimsuit issue this year - I'm not going home this month like I usually do - and I have smuggled a SI Swimsuit issue back every year for him since we've been here]. A box of beef jerky - from the States. And a couple of other things. It will be like Christmas! Happy 46th Birthday, DH!!!

Remember not too long ago - less than two weeks ago - there was a big thing about all the new driving rules and regulations and how the traffic police were going to be out there educating everyone about what they should and shouldn't do? Umm. Yeah. I guess not so much, after all. Although I did see a driver getting pulled over. A flat-bed semi-truck - which of course, was not being driven by a "local" was on the side of the road with the Indian [Pakistani?] driver standing next to the traffic policeman's car waiting to get his ticket for doing something crazy-awful like using his blinker or driving the speed limit. Everyone else was whizzing by the guy like they were all on the way to a fire or something.

Apparently most of the driver's here have yet to receive the memo that you are not supposed to be using your "mobile" while operating a vehicle. That is going to be really, really difficult to enforce. There just are not enough traffic policemen to stop everyone that is driving with a mobile glued to their ear. I don't know what is always so pertinent that the calls have to be made on a 24/7/365 basis - I am, obviously, out of those loops. I'm pretty sure the only time most of these people are not on their mobiles is while they are at the mosques. Other than that? Even as they work, they are on those damn phones. There is just no way the traffic police are going to be able to outlaw talking on one's mobile and driving. Not gonna happen.

The driver's didn't get the memo about putting children in the back seats of vehicles, either. I watched car after car after car full of passengers - the men driving, women completely covered in black - and kids - little kids - bebopping all over the front seats. The white 4-door Chevy Impala that was next to the car I was in through several sets of lights had FOUR occupants in the front seat and not a single one in the back. The father/husband - in his tan thobe - driving with his mobile glued to his ear, [what I assumed is] the mother/wife in the front passenger's seat holding a baby [I could see it's little bald head] and a three-four-five year old little boy doing acrobats over and around all of them. Glad he wasn't my little boy - he'd have been spanked into last week with the distraction and shennigans he was pulling. All over the dad the mom AND the baby. What the?!? Not my problem. He wasn't in my vehicle. [Of course my child was in a safety seat, IN THE BACK SEAT, until he was about six! And even now The Kids ride in the back of our vehicle.]

A few cars later - there was a Kia mini-van - had to have half a dozen kids in it. No one was in the front seat though, but for the imported driver. Two women in the middle seat - fully covered in black - and kids galore. Up and down - back and forth - not a single one of them belted in. I don't know how my parents did it with five of us kids in a station wagon. Growing up, back in the day... There was no seat-belt law, and child safety-seats were a little seat that hooked over the car's seat back with absolutely no way to stop it from being propelled like a missile if there ever would have been a collision. [I'm dating myself, there.] I can say this, though, we were not nearly as unruly as what I see here. There may well have been five of us kids - we had one of those station wagons that had two rear-facing seats, the middle/back seat and then the front seat. If/when we started to get out of hand if Dad was driving, then Mom would just start swatting whichever ones of us she could reach [safest seat was in the very back!]; if Mom was driving we were threatened every few miles, you know, the "don't make me have to pull this car over or else!" Both methods seemed to work pretty well for them. We just didn't jump up and down - crawl back and forth - and act like out of control wild things. [Right, Mom?]

Oh, and about those Kia mini-vans... I was headed to the commissary a couple of days ago - only a few blocks from our house - and as I was driving up the street one of them was stopped - right in the middle of the road - letting its passengers out. Funniest thing. Just when I thought for sure that all of the occupants had to have exited - a few more would get out. I had no idea that a Kia mini-van could accommodate a dozen or more women and children [one lone man driving - NOT an imported driver, either]. You could not possibly just pull over and park and then let everyone out? Noooo! Had to block the street - stop right there - and let everyone out. Just as the mini-van was about to depart it's "middle of the street" spot after emptying, one of the kids - a little toddler-sized girl - when dashing after it. If I wouldn't have been completely stopped - stunned and mesmerized by the whole sight - she'd have been hit. One of the women dressed head-to-toe in black raced to grab her - I could actually see the fear in her eyes through her veil's slit - as the little girl was darting into the road. Yeah. Don't worry. I saw her. Perhaps if your husband/brother/uncle/father would have driven up the street a little ways, and actually pulled into a parking spot, all of you could have walked down the sidewalk to the park. Safely. Without the risk of your two-year-old becoming roadkill. Never mind. That is just far too logical in this "LFZ."

Anyway, the whole point of this is that the traffic police are not out there pulling anyone but imported truck driver's over, and that chaos on the roads reigns and will continue to do so no matter what is reported and no matter what rules and regulations are implemented. Expect to see continued population control road carnage in the foreseeable future.

UPDATE:

DH opened his presents this morning. A very nice birthday. No cake, though. I asked him if he wanted me to make him a cake two days ago and he said, "You can if you want to but I probably won't eat any of it." Really no point, then. I'm the only one who would be eating the cake - may as well make my favorite [devil's food chocolate] and not his [carrot cake]. I don't need to be eating cake, so there isn't one.

Rev's guys have been working on the pool for the last week, pretty diligently. They are almost done with the tiling. It will not get grouted until this weekend - probably Friday. This morning, after the Birthday celebration, I was out with The Boy so he could do business and I realized that they have put down the slickest tile possible on the steps. It will be like sliding on wet glass. I yelled at the guy that was cementing it down that it had to come up right away. "Very dangerous!" [He, of course, has NO clue what I am saying or trying to convey.] I came storming in the house to tell DH that Rev is trying to kill me. Rev wants me to slip on the steps [which are are already dangerous in and of themselves - no building code anywhere in the States would ever allow what we have for pool steps - but since there are no building codes in The Sandbox - anything goes] and crack my head wide-open. DH says, "What are you talking about." We go outside together and DH says, "Hon, the grout in between the tiles is what is going to keep you from slipping." Oh really? You think so, do you? "Do you want to see me dead, too? Before your 47th birthday?! Have you updated my life insurance policy or something?" Meanwhile the guy doing the tile work on the steps is ripping the stuff up - DH goes back out and says, "Don't listen to her. She doesn't know what she is talking about."

Wrong thing for DH to say to the guy. And, of course, I couldn't let THAT go. DH came back in and I said something to the effect that I'm going to tell everyone that if something happens to me this summer while I'm out by / in the pool then an investigation as to the circumstances need to be thoroughly looked into. DH said something like, "Are you trying to ruin my birthday?" To which I responded, "Are you trying to ruin my life?" I turned around - The Baby was just sitting there, devotedly looking up at me, and I said, "I just hope for your sake Pretty Princess that your NEW Mommy loves little girls as much as your OLD Mommy does."

Just throwing this out there - before the pool is filled and I go sliding down the two, already perilously dangerous steps - that if something happens to me this summer and I end up with a severe head injury which leads to my [untimely] demise, you'll know what has happened. And it WILL NOT have been an accident!

I'll update the PIP [pool in progress] later this week. Right now I'm off to Zappos SwimOutlet.com [which, amazingly is NOT blocked!] to find a pair of water shoes with extra-gripping-tread so that I can try to prevent my own accident.