The whole process took a few months. After all, decisions like the one to leave a good job in a flan-soft economy and move to a country where the employment opportunities are even worse, unless you own a burro, and where, let's be honest, sweating is a national pastime, these decisions come on slowly, like heat rash.

For weeks, my wife and I fantasized while lying in bed, me playing the role of robust Diego Rivera and she, tormented, uni-browed Frida Kahlo. But that's an article for a different magazine. More to the point, we fantasized about how living in Mexico might work. We finally agreed to the let the universe decide for us via a series of tests.

Here, then, is the box score for those keeping track at home:

Test #1:
How might my wife's ex-husband and father to her 11-year-old daughter, Lily, feel about us taking her to Mexico for a year? Dad, who's never been fond of me (perhaps on account of those aforementioned girlish hands), immediately understood the value of such an experience for his child and agreed to the idea. One point Mexico (and one point Dad). We rented "The Three Amigos."

Test #2:
What sort of educational options does an American girl have in Puerto Vallarta? (We selected Puerto Vallarta as we'd been there before and because it boasts no fewer than six official Señor Frog's outlet stores.) A tour of the Internet turned up countless porn sites, some of them quite interesting, and one site for the Colegio Americano de Puerto Vallarta (i.e., the American School of Puerto Vallarta).

The school appeared to be a private, accredited, long-standing and by all accounts respected K-12 institution that was not, as far as we could tell, affiliated with Nike or Kathie Lee Gifford's line of suburb-ready children's clothing.

Two weeks after submitting Lily's application, we were excited to learn of her acceptance. Two points Mexico. We begin referring to each other as "El Guapo" and "Señorita Mamacita."

Test #2a:
Private school?! Where in the hell were we going to find the pesos for that, especially given the fact that the words "savings account" were almost as foreign a language to us as Spanish? We are still awaiting the universe's answer to this one. We suspect it will include the words "credit" and "card."

To our Spanish teacher, we pose this first question: "Señor, if one wanted to, hypothetically that is, how might one say, in Spanish, "Do I need experience to be a drug mule?'")

Test #3:
One word, two syllables: mortgage, the second syllable of which is, appropriately, almost a homonym for the measurement of a gun's bore. Who will keep up payments on our house in the States while we hit the dusty trail for Jalisco? Short of mob ties that put our thumbs and knees in jeopardy, no one.

Then, like Dyna Woman and Electra Girl, enter two friends, who, looking to reduce costs on their respective one-bedroom places, agreed to a year lease at ours. Three points Mexico. We start sleeping with warm tortillas in our bed and I practice saying "Corinthian leather."

But then I suppose I can't blame them, because, to be honest, now that I'm in Mexico the last thing I want to do is the work that inspired me to leave in the first place. I guess there are reasons my former managers are managers and I'm thinking about braiding tourists' hair to keep me in tacos and Tecate.

So after packing up our 1993 Nissan Altima, which only by a trained eye could be distinguished from the Joads' dust-bowl wagon, we hit the road in late July. We traveled three weeks and about three thousand miles down the Pacific coast, across the border at Nogales to join Highway 15, and then through four Mexican states to Puerto Vallarta.

We are now nearly two weeks in the city, preparing for Lily's first day at the American School. While we've not yet secured a job of any kind, I can confidently say, we appreciate more than ever the appeal of income. We have found a comfortable apartment in Old Town and have rediscovered life's simpler pleasures: sleeping, visiting Internet cafes and learning new swear words.

Now back to that painted police car. When I think back on it, once I realized the cruiser was only a decoy, and a decoy that the artist didn't even bother to staff with a driver, I'm proud of how quickly I got back up to speed. It's not hard when the universe is behind you.