the one surrounded by the police???!!!

Imagine me telling this story with a lot of hand motions and voice inflection....

Somehow, with the help of GPS technology, I managed to get to the DF airport in record time on Saturday to pick up David. Still, he arrived earlier than I expected, so I felt rushed and harried. I found the parking garage, carefully stowed all of my electronics, packed up my items, locked the car, and walked into the airport to meet Dave and have some dinner. An hour later, we walked into the parking garage with our paid parking ticket and I pointed David in the direction of our car.

"The one surrounded by police?"

Um, yep! The one surrounded by not only airport security but FEDERAL POLICE. WITH LOADED WEAPONS. oh, yeah. Our car was somehow a security hazard.

Why? I had managed to keep the car running while locked.

How is this possible? because of the genius electrical engineers at Nissan, who developed a key-less ignition with an important safety feature: the car will keep running after the keys are removed from the vehicle (theoretically, to prevent a car crash after your deranged passenger throws the keys out the window, rather than to keep a car running while parked).

As we approach the car, 2 US tourists with suitcases, the police are pretty much shocked. The car has DF license plates - how/ why would tourists have a locally plated car in the parking garage (rather than a rental car, for example)? Then, they explain, very slowly in simple Spanish that the car is still running.

So, I unlock the door, turn off the ignition, smile sheepishly, and apologize in Spanish.

We could practically hear their jaws drop.

Again, in very slow, simple Spanish, one security guard mentions that in Mexico, they generally turn off their ignitions when they park their cars at the airport, because of airport security.

Ah, got it. Thanks for the info.

Thankfully, we speak enough Spanish now for me to joke that it was all my fault; normally my husband drives the car, but that these new Nissans are much to advanced for women & they need to have female engineers design these things! (Women are seen as very bad drivers in Mexico.) They smiled at me. :) The guy with the gun did not seem to be brandishing it... which was good.

Then, in Spanish, we went through 5 minutes of trying to show the paperwork for the car. We don't understand the paperwork, even though we speak Spanish, so they 3 officers ended up holding onto 2 passports, Dave's FM3, my driver's license, insurance paperwork, and receipts for oil changes, new tires, emission testing, etc. By this point, they're trying not to laugh at us.

We thanked them, in Spanish, at least 3 times for their dedicated service, and apologized for our mistake, which seemed to confuse rather than flatter them. ("why aren't they mad at us?" we could see their expressions asking.

And then we drove away!

Ah, it is good to leave the police behind.