Lollipopped

"My boy lollipop / You make my heart go giddy-up..."

- Spice Girls, My Boy Lollipop 

Yesterday, we learned that in Italy, not only do the carabinieri carry guns (and sometimes, submachine guns), they also carry lollipops:

 

photo credit for this image here

We drove into Termoli to do a little shopping; as we were approaching our next-to-last roundabout to take the exit for the store, I saw a red dot from the corner of my eye and looked up from my phone just in time to see that we were passing a police car parked on the side of the road, besides which was a member of the carabinieri waving a short, skinny stick with a small red circle at the top.  "What was that?" I asked Paolo, who was driving.

"I think he wanted me to slow down."  Not an unreasonable assumption, as Paolo has really adapted quite well to the aggressive, high-speed/low use of turn signals Italian style of driving [insert sarcasm here].

A minute later, as we're about to turn into the store parking lot:  "Ohhh.  I think he's coming after me."

Great.

Sure enough, the police car pulls in next to us in the parking lot; two officers get out of the car.  Fortunately (and surprisingly), the younger of the two spoke a bit of English (observation:  the longer we spoke, the better his English became).

Paolo got out of the car, too.  The younger officer started off speaking in rapid Italian, but we of course couldn't understand him, and Paolo quickly interrupted to say he didn't speak Italian and that we are Americans who speak English.  Then the young guy got into the passenger side of his car, and placed his hands on the dash, and started saying something about in America we would have to stay in the car when talking to police but in Italy it was OK to get out of the car and talk to the police...?  That's what I took from it, anyway.  Maybe he thought we were afraid of the police, because of all the bad press American cops get.  I'm really not sure, but he seemed nice enough, so I'll lean towards the "he was trying to reassure us in some way" theory.  He then informed us that when you see the lollipop, you have to STOP.  Paolo apologized and explained he thought they were just indicating that he should slow down.

He then asked for Paolo's ID; he handed them his PA driver's license, while I rooted around in my purse to dig out his AAA International Driver's license (which is just a translation of the driver's license info) and his passport.  "Are you staying in Termoli?" the carabiniere asked.  Paolo said no, we live in [our comune].  "You work in Termoli?"  "No, I'm retired."  "You retired in Italy?!"  Paolo informed him:  "My wife is Italian!"

So I hand over my Italian ID and say, "I'm a citizen."  This really seemed to throw him; especially because I wasn't speaking Italian (I was actually trying to say as little as possible - American conditioning, I guess).  I could almost see him mentally scratching his head.  "You're a citizen...you live here?"  

Because Paolo is now outside of the 90-day stay limit as a US citizen, I felt it prudent to mention that he has an upcoming appointment for permesso, the receipt for which is stashed inside his passport.  However, the officer didn't seem even remotely interested in this information.

Then he looks at Paolo's ID again, and asks, "Are you a veteran?"  "Sì, Army."  "What conflict?"  We were a little stumped by this; I think Paolo decided what he meant to ask was, "Where were you stationed?" so he replied "Germany.  Near Heidelberg."  "How long?"  "Three years."

Officer Young Guy looked a bit askance at this; probably because we didn't mention that those "three years" were quite some time ago (it's actually not all that unusual for retired US military folk who've been stationed in Italy to remain/retire here when their service is complete; they make up a fairly sizable portion of the expat community in some regions, it seems).  But in any event, he seemed satisfied with the information provided, and explained in Italian the gist of our conversation to his fellow officer.  Then they smiled and waved and took off.

Overall, it was a pretty friendly, relaxed encounter, as these things go.  But we never did find out exactly why they wanted to stop us in the first place.