Sticker shock

Well, here we call them calcomonias...or with another English word making its way into Spanish "stikers."

The government, in its infinite wisdom, this particular time being the President, decided that to save fuel and congestion, each vehicle (except for an arm's length list of exceptions) must pick a day of the week...and park it. The program is called "Today you go nowhere" (loosely translated...I pick on it a different way every day).

In amongst the glowing reports about this program (I have only seen criticism...is it legal? it will not save any fuel or money? how did they decide who would print the stickers? Was that legal? And more), the big thing was that the stickers would be free to those of us that own vehicles. Oh, how nice! But to get them...well, that is another story. They are distributed based on the last number in the license plate, and I got the pleasure of going first (the Defender ends in 1) today to try to find where they were handing them out (at the police station? No. At the police central agency? No. Oh, did you not figure out it would be at a teacher's university? Duh!), and then stand in line with some other thrilled individuals for about two hours, all for the privledge of getting my sticker for the Defender (in case you were wondering, we decided on Tuesday for it) and I get to go back for the Ford, and the Musso (although Valerie might have to go for that one should she arrive on time since it is in her name.)

Ugh.