Diary of a Wimpy Expat: The Montecarlo parking saga continues

Will I ever actually hold a Montecarlo parking permit in my hands again?

Today marked my third consecutive Thursday pilgrimage to the local police station. As you may recall, this sanctuary of administration opens its doors to the public for a grand total of three hours a week—from 9 a.m. to noon. I marched into the Municipio feeling optimistic. In my hands, I held my beautifully filled-in, officially stamped application, and the hard-fought printout of our car’s carta di circolazione, courtesy of some heroes at the Florence airport.

I arrived to find the office entirely dark and firmly locked.

Please, just give me one of these!

But I wasn’t discouraged. This is Italy, after all; a locked door at opening time is practically part of the charm. I took a seat on a wooden chair in the hallway and pulled out a book I currently have on loan from the Montecarlo library: Diario di una Schiappa: Una Vacanza di Panico. For the uninitiated, it’s the Italian translation of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series—where absolutely everything that can go wrong for Greg Heffley and his family does exactly that. It is right at my Italian reading level, and a devastatingly fitting analogy for my epic quest to obtain a laminated piece of dashboard plastic.

About 10 minutes into the story of Greg’s holiday panic, the hallway lights flickered on, followed by the glorious, metallic rattle of a key turning in the office lock.

I entered and was greeted by a completely different poliziotto than the officer who had previously given me the solemn lecture on the legality of my glove box. Not wanting to get bogged down in the messy history of my previous struggles, I kept it simple: “I’ve come to get a parking permit.”

He looked over the papers, nodded sagely, and delivered the classic line: “Everything seems to be in order. But you need to take this to the protocol office.”

“Ah, but I already did!” I replied, pointing triumphantly to the page. “See the official stamp?”

“Oh, yes,” he murmured, entirely unbothered. “Then it is all okay.”

“Excellent,” I said, sensing victory. “So last week I didn’t have the carta di circolazione, but here it is. Can I give you that, along with the application form?”

“You can keep the application form,” he replied breezily. “That is your copy. The protocol office already kept one for their records.”

Fantastic. Except he didn’t seem to grasp that I had been turned away seven days prior precisely because of the missing registration. I wasn’t about to let a rogue piece of paper break this fragile chain of custody. I gently but firmly urged him to take it, insisting he keep the application too, so there would be no cosmic doubt that the two documents belonged together.

“Va bene,” he sighed, finally accepting them both.

I took a breath. “Great! So... can I get my parking pass now?”

“Oh, torna giovedì prossimo. It should be ready by then.”

Mamma mia.

Next Thursday. If my math is correct, that will mark exactly three weeks since I first crossed this threshold—plus a few extra days, considering we arrived on a Tuesday. But what choice did I have? You do not argue with the people in charge of the laminator. I smiled, accepted my fate, and prepared to make my exit.

But then, a lingering anxiety stopped me. “And where am I supposed to park in the meantime? Only outside the city walls?”

He shrugged, offering a casual, quintessentially Italian wave of dismissal. “Oh, non ti preoccupare. Don’t worry about that. You won’t be fined.”

Well, admittedly, he’s probably on point there. In our time living in Montecarlo, a police parking ticket is about as uncommon as a bad meal. On the legendary handful of occasions where the police do go on a rare ticketing spree, they do a thorough job and ticket every single offender in sight. When that happens, about 25% of the cars wind up with tickets—meaning the other 75% are law-abiding citizens who actually have their passes. The remaining quarter of drivers are simply gambling on the fact that the officers almost never issue tickets. It’s a beautifully lax approach to enforcement that everyone understands.

So, armed with nothing but the verbal blessing of a shifting Thursday police guard, we are officially back to parking right outside our front door—provided there’s a space available, of course. The exile outside the walls is over, even if the paperwork isn’t.

And maybe, just maybe, next Thursday will be the charm. The tragic irony, of course, is that the car is due back to the rental agency the following Monday. If all goes to plan, we will have exactly four days to enjoy our hard-fought, hyper-exclusive parking privilege.

If that isn’t a chapter straight out of Greg Heffley’s life, I don’t know what is.