giugno 30, 2012 UK Flag Italy Flag Spain Flag

La saga dello scooter spagnolo: Una storia di burocrazia e avventure stradali insolite The Spanish Scooter Saga: A Tale of Bureaucracy and unexpected Adventures La saga del scooter español: Un relato de burocracia y aventuras viales inusuales.

Once upon a time in Spain..

A long time ago, someone who could barely ride a bicycle decided to buy a motorbike. Unfortunately, even though she lived only 500 meters away from the office in Alicante, it took her more than an hour to get there.

The office was separated from her house by a barren and dry stretch of land, divided in two by a channel of waste from an aluminum industry. The only connecting road was a fast-flowing dual-lane artery forbidden to pedestrians. They eventually fixed the area, but at that time, it was like that.

A Kafkaesque Bureaucratic Loop

She bought the motorbike from a colleague, paid for it, and parked it in the garage without being able to formalize the ownership transfer. To register the purchase, she needed a driving license, which she didn't have. To obtain the license, she had to enroll in a course. To enroll in the course, she had to obtain the NIS, which is something between a tax code and a social security number.

She ended up caught in a kind of Kafkaesque bureaucratic loop. The office only issued about twenty of them per day. No matter how early she went in the morning, she never made it in time. She tried once, twice, three times, and finally gave up.

The office building continued to mockingly stand there for three years, in full view in front of her balcony, while she continued to wait endlessly for the bus under the Spanish sun. All of this went on until three weeks before the move to Brussels when she remembered the scooter. I suggested selling it. A buyer emerged but didn't show up. So she started talking about taking it with us to Brussels.

A Rollercoaster Journey

I strongly advised against it, presenting my case with crystal clarity and remarkable argumentative prowess. Smuggling someone else's scooter into Belgium wouldn't have been the best introduction for someone working at the EU anti-fraud office. But events accelerated. She discovered that there was another office with a much shorter queue for EU citizens. She obtained the number and enrolled in the driving license training. She passed the exam ten days before departure. She obtained the license two days before and just in time, registered the vehicle.

"Alright. It's yours now," I said, "but do you know how much it costs to transport it from Alicante to Brussels?"

"Nothing," said the removal company employee, "whether you add the scooter or not, truck transportation costs the same."

And so, the scooter reached us in Brussels, and the Kafkaesque nightmare resumed. The scooter, which hadn't even traveled ten meters, now had to be re-registered and insured in Belgium.

We found someone who insured it without changing the license plate. They explained that we would have to continue the process, but in the meantime, we could finally use it.

So, one evening, in the grip of a midsummer impulse, I, who had hardly ever ridden scooters in my life, mounted it to reach a guy in the European quarter. And when it was already too late to turn back, I realized that the helmet was too tight, the mirrors were loosely attached and dangling, and it was freezing cold despite being July 27th. The engine would stall at every traffic light, and restarting it was a voodoo ritual.

I crossed frightening areas, yet it was the least dangerous part of the evening. I reflected on how the police would react, for example, to a scooter belonging to a Polish citizen, driven by an Italian, with a Spanish license plate and Belgian insurance. I found myself catapulted into the middle lane of Rue Belliard, a one-way street with five lanes. It's one of those arteries that have been carved through the center of Brussels over the years to allow Flemish commuters, who hate their capital, to enter and exit undisturbed every day.

Cars were overtaking me on the right and left at full speed. I somehow got out of it just 100 meters before the entrance to the highway tunnel, but I missed a turn and had to make a new death loop that allowed me to discover a fundamental fact about Brussels.

It’s not difficult to commit suicide and make your family collect insurance money at the same time. Go to Brussels and ride a scooter.

When I got off, I had the complexion of the Incredible Hulk with a gastrointestinal virus.

My friend patched up the scooter. I somehow returned and parked it in front of a church near our home.

The Final Chapter

In the following months, perhaps thanks to the holiness of the place, the vehicle became part of the urban decor, completely covered in white droppings from the crows, miraculously forgotten by vandals, thieves, and everyone else. The neighborhood market was set up around it with vendors on the side.

Some time later, the saint had enough, took a sick day, and the thieves were given the green light. The scooter disappeared happily without a trace. Except in the memory of its owner, who longed for it from time to time. Even though she had only ridden it once on a graveled lot in Spain, almost exterminating a family with a dog. But only because she had dreamed of having one when she was little.

In the meantime, our life in Belgium continued. I returned to the Rat Race, we bought a house. Then Angie arrived, still in the womb as an embryo. One fine day at the end of November, as she approached the end of her pregnancy and the countdown was imminent, her phone rang. I asked her who it was.

"It's the police," she replied joyfully, "they found the scooter. They want me to go to the police station to pick it up!"

If Hell exists, I surely sank four or five circles for the things that came out of my mouth that day.

Had it ever been heard of finding a stolen scooter after two years? And the Belgian police? Didn't they have anything better to do in Brussels? With all the scandals, conspiracies, frauds, etc. originating in this (European) district? Do they have time to deal with her scooter?

Sometime later, we were given a deadline from the police station, the last and final one, to pick it up before it would be scrapped. That's how, with Angie now a flesh-and-blood baby, the scrap disappeared forever from our lives, but also from the owner's nostalgia, and she dedicated herself to other things from that moment on.