In August 1993 I drove to Italy in one of the school’s more beat-up Volkswagen vans — the blue one we used to haul food and gear when we took kids up to Brione to go camping in Valle Verzasca. That morning I’d brought a student from Lugano to Malpensa Airport at the end of summer, waved them through departure, and then taken myself out to lunch at a trattoria before the drive back to TASIS (the American School in Switzerland).

When I stepped outside, there was a poliziotto in the act of writing a ticket. We immediately launched into a spirited discussione, complete with theatrical Italian hand gestures. I’m pretty sure I used every adjective I knew in Italian — the polite ones, the rude ones, and a few I invented under pressure. The agente remained unmoved.

The violation was written as:

“Sostava in zona riservata non autorizzato o senza esporre contrassegno.”

Basically: parked in a reserved area without authorization or without displaying the proper permit.

The fine was 50,000 lire — roughly 25 bucks. No great tragedy. And I had no intention of paying it. In a couple of days I’d be in Paris, then Amsterdam, and then back home in Brooklyn.

I figured I’d deal with it when I went back to the school the next year. Fat chance.

Richard La Rosa