2007-05-24 Y.A.P.C.

Scuba diving after work is great! The only drawback is that I have to leave the office at five and come home way after midnight completely pooped. But it was sure worth it. My new suit is just perfect!

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Yet Another Police Control!
In my lunch break I bought a light bulb for my car, installed it and drove to the police station to show them. That's when I thought I wouldn't see a policeman for at least two years. Far from it! When we drove to the lake this evening, we got into yet another police control. We were eight people in a van, three of which were not wearing their safety belt, one of them even being the driver. All in all they had to pay 120 €. Personally I always use my safety belt, even for short distances. If you put it that way, I saved money today!

And while I'm at it, I have two more seat belt stories up my sleeve:

There was this guy who lived in an area where the speed limit was 30 km/h. When he came home from work he got into a radar speed check and was photographed. He was sure that he hadn't been driving too fast, so he thought there must be something wrong with the radar device. He turned around and drove by once more, with about 15 km/h. And he was photographed again. That arouse his curiosity and he drove by a third time. Solid walking speed. Yet another photo. By that time he must have been either fed up or bored, because he let it slide and went home. A few weeks later, when the tickets were in the mail, he finally understood: In this special case, the photos were not taking to check if the car was driving too fast, but to check if the drivers buckled their seat belts. Of course, our guy here didn't. At least they didn't make him pay the threefold amount, he got a volume discount. (This really happened to someone who knows someone I know.)

In the early seventies not using seat belts became illegal in Italy. Italian people, who are known for their liberal attitude and obviously cannot be bothered with too much law at a time, had this brilliant idea: they made T-shirts with a black stripe from the left shoulder to the right hip. From a distance it looked as if the driver was wearing his safety belt, when in fact he wasn't. I don't know if these shirts later became illegal themselves, or if the people got used to using the safety belt.

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Blunder of the day: I bought a box of muesli-bars. Or at least I thought I did. When I opened the box later I realized that I had actually bought muesli. Damn box design.