The Next Light, Please

We have had quite a few encounters with the police lately while driving. It seems that they are on every corner--well, they are on every corner--and pulling people over. And we are no exception. Turn a corner, make eye contact with the policeman and out comes the "pozhalusta stick" (the "please stick"). We call it this because they wave a nice bright red stick to get you to please pull over; they have no cars so they can't chase you down, a fact we have used to our advantage.

We have seen the pozhalusta stick waved in our direction more times than we care to remember over the last week, and tonight we rounded the corner and were again waved down. Yet again, we thought. But this time, the policeman opened the rear passenger door stuck his head in and in his clearest Russian (even Paul understood) said, "To the next light, please." We obliged, of course. While we had little time to chat too much, he seemed nice enough and we're glad he's patrolling our neighborhood.