I don’t know why I don’t pick up the local paper more often; there’s so much to catch the eye of the neurotic foreigner!

Besides the happy ending article, there’s another on page 9 of the Local section (where all the good stuff is) which proclaims that police roadblocks in Merida, particularly the ones where motorists are stopped and checked for alcoholic breath, are being modernized.

There’ll be more lights, no roadblocks after overpasses or curves, that sort of thing. All because an officer was run over by a truck because the driver ‘didn’t see’ the roadblock.

Which is fine.

The thing they didn’t get around to ‘modernizing’ is their method by which they obtain their breath sample, as shown in the photo accompanying the article. The officer, and I know this from personal experience as well, is holding a piece of cardboard by the drivers face and is sniffing the drivers breath as it is blown towards his highly trained nostrils.

Surely this is modernization! And what a thrill it must be for any aspiring police officer to have to perform this degrading duty. What if urine samples had to be taken? It’s a disturbing thought…

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