Cancun on $400 a day
I've got to tell you. I like the
new President.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in
Cancun, Mexico the day CNN announced who the Supreme
Court picked for President of the United States. And
that night I had the first of several recurring
dreams where George W. Bush gets assassinated by
some lunatic. It's not because he's necessarily a
bad man or because of the strange way he got
elected. It just seems in step with the wanton
disregard of semantics in our society. Think about
it. Bush chooses Dick as his running mate. Now he's
entertaining thoughts of Colin for his cabinet. So
it only makes sense that I would see the same
headline, over and over in my mind's eye:
Bush Whacked
After I woke up from this bizarre
dream, I crawled out of bed and headed to the patio,
which overlooked the amazingly crystal blue ocean of
Cancun. How did I wind up here? I thought. I didn't
deserve it. But most of the good things in my life
come undeserved. If I work, slave and strive toward
a goal, you can bet it'll never happen.
Same goes with things I say. If I
say offhandedly, "Yeah, I think I might do that,"
it'll get done. But if I say it with conviction, and
if I say it with passion and determination - you can
be sure it's a lie.
"I swear, I'll quit drinking after
the holidays."
"That's it. No more cigarettes for
me."
"Fine. I'll get a job then."
Knock, knock, knock.
"Housekeeping." Shit. It's the same woman from the
Net Wits convention. She's everywhere.
After the maid kicked us out of our
suite, my girlfriend and I went down to get lunch at
the hotel restaurant on the beach. Since it was
11:30, the staff was in the middle of the changeover
from breakfast to lunch.
The sign on the restaurant marquee
read, "We'll be black with you at noon." Damn. Can't
wait to see that.
Another notice read, "Please throw
paper at the wasted basket." That's only fair. Odds
are the thrower is wasted as well.
But the funniest note came from the
maid, who wrote, "Please no pee off balcony,
Haspeer." Haspeer. What a hoot.
Besides drinking margaritas at the
beach, my girlfriend forced me to go downtown to the
little shops called "mercados" in Spanish.
Everything in Mexico is designed to separate
Americans from their money. It's like Vegas with an
ocean. The exchange rate is 9 pesos to the dollar,
but the Mexicans make up for that by charging nine
times the normal price, then adding a few pesos.
They also don't care for browsers, so as soon as you
walk into a store, the shopkeeper assigns someone to
tail you. I felt like a black man in a Korean-owned
convenience store.
The girlfriend wanted to spend more
time at the mercados, but I just wanted to hang
around the beach and drink margaritas. True, I would
not have had anything to write about if I had gotten
my way, except for one incident. As I was coming
back to my room from the beach, I took a crowded
elevator up to my sixth floor suite. As I got out, a
tall blond woman was getting in. I heard a guy say,
"We're going up." The blond said, "Well, I'll go up,
then I'll go down." Just as the elevator doors were
about to close, I called back, "My kind of girl."
I figure if I didn't get a laugh,
then at least I created an uncomfortable silence.
Either one's fine with me.
That same night, after I learned
that Bush had become President, I went into a small
bar at the hotel, called Club All Inclusive. You can
drink there 24 hours a day and the setup's sweet.
There's no bartender, just several bottles of booze
and some mixers sitting on a counter. You go up,
grab a glass, pour yourself a drink, and take a seat
at a table. I went up to the bar and grabbed a
bottle. Why should I hide behind some pretense of
manners when I could save myself several
inconvenient trips to the bar?
I sat at the table drinking Jack
Daniels and watching CNN. Hmmm. So the Supreme Court
got to pick the President, huh? Wonder who they like
in the Super Bowl.
In the middle of my drunken
reverie, a Jewish couple came in and struck up a
conversation with me. That is, I thought they were
Jewish. Turns out they had just moved to South
Carolina from Long Island and had converted to
Christianity. I don't know what's stranger. That
they moved from New York to South Carolina and
changed religions. Or that they chose to sit with me
in a Cancun bar.
We immediately got into an argument
about politics, but that soon escalated into an
argument about religion. I was in my element --
watching CNN, drinking Jack Daniels, and arguing
with Christian Fundamentalists in Mexico. Is life
too surreal or what?
Is there a new Calvinism in
America? Cause I don't remember seeing the memo. One
tenant of Calvinism says there are just a few
reservations available in heaven, but you could tell
the ones who were going to sit at the big table by
the amount of money they made on Earth. I think that
concept's been changed. I think it's now measured by
the amount of food you put away.
Ren and Stimpy, as I came to call
them, tried to escape my table twice, but I
convinced them to stay. "Come on, we're just
Americans talking here. I'm harmless." They bought
it.
The first time they tried to leave
came after I tried out the "Bush Whacked" line on
them. The second time came during an abortion
argument, when I quoted some Bill Hicks material for
them. "Pro-lifers, murdering doctors. You people
crack me up. It's irony on a base level, but it's a
hoot. Why don't you guys protest cemeteries?"
But I finally came up with a line
that cleared the table for good. Stimpy leaned over
to me, looked me ever-so-sincerely in the eye and
said, "Jesus is my personal savior."
I said, "What a fuckin'
coincidence. He was my waiter at lunch."
Ren and Stimpy realized I was an
evil, bitter little man and stormed out of the bar.
Now the bar was empty, except for Jose who came to
clear my ashtray.
"You know, Jose, I really like the
new President."
"Bush?"
"No," I said. "Fox. President of
Mexico."
* * *
CALIFORNIA BOUND: You may not see a column from
me for a few weeks. My parents are having some health
problems, so I have to go to California to help out. If
you haven't already done so, check out my archives.
When you're through with that, check out Will Durst.
I've included the link below.
* * *
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column aims to be funny. If you can
read anything else into it, you're on your own.
Link(s) Of The
Week
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