Bitchin' about Bureaucracy

In Torreón, when they give you a parking ticket, the traffic cop unscrews your license plate and takes it with him to ensure that you pay the fine. When this happened to me recently, he also took the screws that kept the plate in place. When I went to pay the fine, they handed over my plate minus the screws. The handyman working for 5-peso tips in the parking lot also had no screws. I went back inside the payment office and complained, and they weren't particularly concerned, neither with my specific plight nor the general unfairness of taking the screws from the cars. No matter what line of reasoning I employed, the collective response (which got louder with repetition) was, "We have no screws." I can't legally drive because my license plate is in my glove compartment. And to begin with, I was actually parked correctly. I hate them all.