| Ok, listen up. When you leave a store or a restaurant in Italy, always take the receipt. ALWAYS. Don't get rid of it until you're at least several hundred meters away from the store. The authorities can fine you big time for not complying with this practice, which is, in fact, the law, a violation of which comes with a hefty fine, I'm told
You see, the Guardia di Finanza, Italy's tax police, are allowed to carry guns, and often do. They are also allowed to stop you, flash a badge, and ask to see a receipt from a store you've recently exited. (They seldom shoot people over the lack of a receipt--but you never know. I just like talking about the tax police wielding weaponry. It seems excessive somehow.)
In any case, the reason I'm reminded of this is that my friend Frank has just been busted in Pontremoli over a lack of receipt for a 2 Euro slice of pizza:
...my server says due euro. I slap a 2 euro coin down and grab the pizza but don't take the cash register receipt, as I am fresh out of hands to grab it. I join my wife and dog outside and a tourist comes up to me and says something I can't quite hear. I ask him in English if I can help him and he shows me his identification FINANCIAL POLICE.
Frank played dumb and talked his way out of the fine. Frank could probably talk his way out of anything--in English. There's nothing like a barrage of several thousand words of English coming at you non-stop as a ploy to confound the constabulary--but taking the receipt is a whole lot easier in the end. |
