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You know what really grinds my gears? Numbers. Why do we as a society obsess over them so much? When I was in therapy for my eating disorder (oh noes I’m getting all personal), my therapist would always tell me not to fall in love with the numbers. My doctor forbade me to weigh any less than 115 pounds, and I listened, but I would freak out every time I got on the scale and it said 116. And she would say, “Beppy, are you serious? You don’t look any different. It’s a number. You have got to let go of the numbers.”
Once, we were talking about sex and what counts as losing your virginity, and she said she thought third base counted and I just lost my shit. I was like, “No way! That would mean I lost it when I was 17! Ugh, that sounds so skanky!”
Her response: “Once again, Beppy, it’s a number.” Granted, the real thing that disgusted me was to whom I would have lost my virginity if you count third base. I do not. So that’s just one little anecdote from my personal life, but you see this number thing everywhere, all the time.
It starts out young – standardized test scores, your batting average in little league, how many tokens you got in the token jar at home for being quiet and doing chores or having them removed for talking back or getting bad grades (did anyone else have a token system or were my parents just really weird?). It continues into high school, when you really start worrying about your GPA, and then those damned SAT scores. Somewhere around junior high, the weight obsession sets in, and for a lot of us, that will never go away. Ever. Age of virginity loss (and what counts as virginity loss) begins to come into question. Are you branded a slut forever if you lose it at 15? Why is it okay for guys and not for girls? If you graduate from high school a virgin, is something wrong with you?
You get into college and GPA is still there, and weight obsession gets worse when you put on the freshman 15. If you try to do something about it, now you have to count calories or carbs or Weight Watchers points. How many minutes were you on the treadmill? How much can you bench? And sex numbers continue to be an issue. If you’re in college and still a virgin, is something really, really wrong with you? How many credit hours should you be taking? If you’re only taking 12, are you a slacker? Then, unless you’re a lazy fuck like me, the GRE scores rear their ugly heads and it’s like high school all over again.
Then you graduate and get tossed into the real world with no idea what to do. If you’re lucky, you get a job and a place to live. Now it’s how much do you make? How much of that are you putting in savings? What’s your credit rating? What’s the square footage of your cubicle? What interest rate are you going to get on your car/house/whatever? If you reach an arbitrary age without getting that big promotion, did you fail at life?
Then you meet “the one.” How much should the ring cost? What’s the appropriate age to get married? Is there one, or is it just when you’re ready? No, of course there’s a concrete number for everything, haven’t you been paying attention? Once you’re married, how often do you have sex? If it’s less than twice a month, is something really, really, REALLY wrong with you? Does the woman (in a heterosexual marriage) make more money than the man? Is this a bad thing?
Let’s not forget your social life. How many friends do you have? How many black friends? How many gay friends? How many facebook friends? How much fucking reddit karma? How many people showed up to your birthday party out of the number of people you invited?
Everything is a motherfucking number. And they don’t mean shit. And to prove it to you, I’m going to tell you all my numbers right now.
I weigh 116 pounds (I wouldn’t care if I weighed more, I’ve just been pooping a lot).
My GPA in high school was 3.62.
My SAT score was 1360.
My GPA in college was 3.67.
I never took the real GREs. I took a practice version and I forget the scores but they were really, really bad.
I have had 1 sexual partner, 3 if you count third base.
I lost my virginity at 19, 17 if you count third base.
I make $28,576.25 a year.
My credit score, last I checked, is 720.
I have approx. 100 square feet of work space.
The interest rate on my car is something awful like 11%.
I am 24 and have yet to be promoted.
My engagement ring cost $80 and my wedding band cost $25.
I got married at 22.
My husband and I have sex 2-3 times a month unless my migraines are really bad.
My husband makes more money than me, but there have been times when he didn’t, and it didn’t matter.
I have about a dozen or so people I can really, truly call “friends.” Five of them are in town. I have three black friends, two gay friends, 183 facebook friends, 163 link karma, and 376 comment karma.
I invited over 30 people to my last birthday party and 8 showed up.
Those are my numbers and I do not care.
I’ve been very cynical lately. Reading Vonnegut’s A Man Without a Country will do that to you. But remember how I said I lost my little red book? Well, I put my e-mail address in the inside of the front cover in case of such an event, and I got this e-mail:
Subject: red.
I have your red book. send me an address and I’ll mail it to you.
This makes me very happy on a Monday morning.
So one of my fans pointed out to me that I haven’t posted in a while, and holy shit, it’s been 3 weeks, hasn’t it? Well, it’s the first week of a brand new semester and I’m head aspl0de fuckall losing it. But there will be some good shit to come, I promise. I found my little red notebook and there was this great essay in there about my ass, and I wanted to post it on here but then I lost my notebook again. So if I find it, you have that to look forward to. Also, expect a domain name change in the near future. Probably to omginorite.com. I can’t be dissing people I encounter and extolling the virtues of the cannabis plant and have my “real” name on here.
So I had every intention to finish up my review of the decade on the same day I started it, but then I discovered Rice Boy, and that was the rest of that day. Then it was Christmas, and then I’ve had the week off, so I’ve been either sleeping or cleaning instead of sitting in front of a computer like I usually do all day. And here it is New Year’s Eve. So here’s the rest of the post.
Disclaimer: These are not necessarily the most important things that happened in the past 5 years. These are the things that stick out in my memory. Some of them are newsworthy, and some are totally not.
January 2005 - Numa Numa Guy takes the world by storm, then can’t handle the fame.
Spring 2005 - Remember Stevo, who was such an unruly rebel at the war protests that he got a ticket for solicitation? He joined the Army and went to Iraq.
May 19, 2005 - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith comes to theaters. DO NOT WAAAAAAAAAAAAANT!!!
August 29, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina strikes the Gulf Coast, killing almost 2,000 people and causing over $90 billion in damage. Four years later, thousands of displaced residents are still living in trailers.
At Some Point During 2005 - My affair with OK Go having lost its spark, I need someone to fill the musical void. Enter the Decemberists. I had been aware of them, but I was late in really discovering them. I’ll never forget the first song I heard - “The Mariner’s Revenge Song.” 9 minutes of pure awesome.
July 11, 2006 - Steve and I add a squeaky spaz weirdo to the family. We call him Jake.
August 2006 - I click on a link on a friend’s MySpace profile that promises “crazy pics from the party,” and get Rick Rolled for the first time.
September 4, 2006 - Zoologist and TV personality Steve Irwin, a.k.a. “The Crocodile Hunter,” is filming in the Great Barrier Reef and is fatally pierced in the chest by a sting ray barb. Oddly enough, I was at sea when it happened. I was a cruise ship in Hawaii, and I couldn’t sleep. 2am Hawaii time was about the time Irwin was pronounced dead. I did not go snorkeling on that trip.
February 17, 2007 - Britney Spears goes to a salon in Tarzana, California, and shaves her own head. This was the most important thing that happened in 2007.
April 9, 2008 - I has a mawwiage.
November 4, 2008 - After a grueling campaign against some weird old white guy, Barack Hussein Obama is elected the 44th president of the United States. And there was much rejoicing.
December 2008 - The first time I hear the name Lady Gaga.
June 24, 2009 - In direct contrast to his plans on living forever, musical pioneer and noted whack job Michael Jackson dies at 50.
July 25, 2009 - The cats just really, really wanted a dog, so we caved and got them Bucky.
At this point in the post, I have to give a nod to Beatrix. My other three pets were acquired within this decade and got their pictures in the post, and I felt bad for leaving out my Basement Cat. Born May 27, 1992, she is but months away from being old enough to vote, smoke, and go to war to fight for her country. So here’s to you, Bebe. See, you’re in Mommy’s blog. Please don’t hurt me.
October 15, 2009 - OMGWTF THERES A KID IN A BALLOON wait nevermind he was hiding. This was the funniest thing that happened this year.
December 24, 2009 - On Christmas Eve, the health care reform bill, albeit a very watered down version, was passed in the Senate after several months of bickering and bullshit and tea parties. More news on its actual execution as it develops.
So that’s the auts for you. I might come back in and add more stuff. Honestly I just wanted to get this done. If anyone can think of other things that happened in 2007, let me know, because I’m at a loss.
New Year’s Eve 1999 - I was at my aunt’s party, shooting pool in the basement with my cousins and my cousin’s cousins. I had on a formal dress and my dad pulled me aside to tell me my boobs were hanging out when I leaned over to take my shot. I was 14 - I wasn’t used to my boobs yet. We counted down with Dick Clark, all wondering in the back of our heads if all the computers were going to crash and everything was going to asplode. Nothing did. I remember looking into someone’s video camera and saying, “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” And thus ended the gay nineties. And thus began the 00’s. We had no fucking idea what we were in for.
This is the decade according to 9 year olds, and here’s Newsweek’s Decade in 7 minutes. Definitely worth watching. I’m about to give you a run down of the decade according to a 24 year old self-loathing burnout. Please enjoy.
June 1999 - Sitting on the roof of my friend Mary’s house in New Jersey, I lay my eyes on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for the first time. Technically it began in 90’s, but no one can argue that HP was an 00’s phenomenon.
November 7, 2000 - Hey, we won! Wait, what? This is a joke, right? Well, that’s it, then. We’re officially fucked.
September 11, 2001 - They won’t let us watch the news like all my friends at other schools did, so I rely on rumors and think that 50,000 people are dead until I get home. In the coming weeks, my mother gets progressively more messed up, has to know where I am at all times, and wears gloves to open the college offer letters that are starting to roll in. If they’re from the New York area, she won’t let me open them at all. At first, the nation seems to come together in the spirit of goodwill, but it quickly devolves into jingoism.
December 2001-December 2003 - All of the Lord of the Rings movies are awesome.
May 16, 2002 - Opening day of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Big screen eye candy overshadowed by acting like the “I slaughtered them like animals” monologue. Still better than Episode I.
October 29, 2002 - My high school sweetheart breaks up with me. Yes, I remember the date. I cry nonstop for days. Then I see this band on Conan. These cute boys in suits telling me to get get get get get over it. I am instantly smitten.
Spring break 2003 - We march through town protesting the impending declaration of war on Iraq. The police have asked us to keep to the sidewalks. I am a good girl. My friend Stevo takes it to the streets. He is ticketed for “solicitation.” The war begins the next day.
August 2003 - I am in college, in a new city where I don’t know a soul except for the man I met at summer orientation who broke my heart. My roommate sucks. I hate my classes. I put on the freshman 15 in a matter of 2 months. If there is pertinent world news during that semester, I am unaware.
December 14, 2003 - Ding dong, the Americans caught Sadaam!
January 2004 - Robin and I canvass the bleak city of Council Bluffs, Iowa, spreading the Good News about our Lord and Savior, Howard Dean. Doors were slammed in our faces. It’s 9 degrees outside. I slip on some ice and have a huge bruise on my bum for weeks. We remain optimistic about our cause. Then he screams and ruins everything.
April 4, 2004 - I go on my first date with my eventual husband.
July 28, 2004 - John Kerry is awarded the Democratic nomination. A cute young black Senator delivers a rousing speech at the convention. I try to get excited about him because it’s the first year I get to vote for a president.
August 22, 2004 - Steve and I adopt Tater. Would you believe my precious fatass was the runt of his litter?
Here he is now btw:
October 2004 - I cast my early vote for John Kerry.
October 27, 2004 - The Boston Red Sox break the 86 year curse and win the World Series. Getting choked up just thinking about that magical moment. They paid their dues, time after time…
November 2, 2004 - whaddaya know, four more years of wtf.
December 26, 2004 - A massive tsunami kills over 230,000 people in South Asia. This is about the time I stop believing in God. The humanitarian efforts to aid the survivors are astounding. This is about the time I start believing in people.
Stay tuned for the second half.
So I shuffled into work today in the 1० weather, unwrapped my layers of outerwear, and sat down to see what voicemails awaited me on the first day of finals.
1) OMG we’re out of scantrons!
2) Umm yea I have some issues with my grade in my humanities class, so I need someone to call me back as soon as possible.
And it begins. Every semester we get these complaints, and in the 3 semesters I’ve worked here I haven’t seen one that was justifiable. I doubt the 4th is going to be any different.
So I called this kid back, and I’m pretty sure I woke him up, but he said as soon as possible so oh well.
*ring ring*
<sleepy> Hello?
Hi, is this Douchebag?
Uh, yea.
I’m with Place of Higher Education Somewhere In Middle America. I’m returning your–
Oh yea, are you the secretary for the assistant dean of humanities?
*What the fuck did you just call me? WHAT the FUCK did YOU just CALL ME?*
Well, I work for the department, I’m not necessarily anyone’s–
Yea, I have some problems with my grade in my humanities class, and I e-mailed the assistant dean and he never e-mailed me back.
I proceeded to send him to the faculty chair, hang up, and scream in my head. Secretary? SECRETARY? Look, you little puke, I do not wear a torpedo bra and get the men their fucking coffee. I have a college degree and my own office. And then the devil’s advocate voice in my head said, “come on, don’t be a whiny feminist, it’s just a word. ’Administrative assistant’ didn’t take over till the 90’s, really. You’re just mad cuz you’re on your period.” No, fuck that. If it was someone older, I’d let it slide. This was a kid who was raised in the 90’s. And he was a little douchebag in every other aspect of our conversation. The entire time, I never got to finish a sentence. And I will bet you solid American dollars that his grade complaint gets dismissed. I just hope it’s a lengthy process and at some point he comes in here and sees how big my office is and how nicely my diploma is hanging on my wall. And I’ll give him one of my business cards too.
It wasn’t pure, concentrated spit. He took some vanilla-scented water out of one of his bottles, swished it around in his mouth, and then let it out in a fine, even mist a couple of times from either side of me. In between spits, he was moving his hands around the air in front of me like Monk when he finds a clue. Then he said, “I need to suck some energy out of your forehead.” I’m glad he warned me in advance, because otherwise my kung fu reflexes might have taken over when he grabbed me by the head and sucked on my forehead with a bizarre whistling sound (Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh).
He said I have stuff in my head called “hoocha” (sp? I tried to google it but found only lobsters. If anyone knows what it’s actually called, let me know. Of course, it could just be total bullshit). It’s neither good nor bad energy; it’s just dense. Just hanging around in my head, weighing things down. This actually made a decent amount of sense to me. Oftentimes when my migraines are in full swing, I feel as if my head is full of something that needs out, and if I could just release the pressure, it would go away. I’ve threatened self-trepanation a number of times, but never actually gone through with it. So this head-sucking is an attempt at getting at the hoocha sans power drill.
After that, he had me lie down on a deer skin rug and put a fancy rock in each of my hands. He asked me to envision good, healing energy being drawn out of the air by the quartz in my left hand, and then moving into my body, up my left arm and into my head. At the same time, he asked me to envision anything negative - physical pain or negative mental energy - coming out of my head or anywhere else in my body, through my right arm, and into a dark gray, polished, egg shaped rock in my right hand. While I did this, he was going to do some Lakota chants. So I imagined good energy coming in through the “good” rock and bad energy going out into the “bad” rock. The chanting sounded really cool. Of course I have no idea what it meant, but it was soothing - except when he stopped for a really long time and I thought he was done, then he started again. That startled me so bad I almost dropped the rocks.
When he was done chanting for real, he did the Monk thing with his hands again. Then he said, “I’m going to do some blowing on your abdominal area.” Wait, what? He made a good call again with warning me. Wait, blowing on my abdom - is he gonna give me a raspberry? If he gives me a raspberry I’m gonna laugh so fucking hard…omg he’s totes giving me a raspberry DON’T LAUGH DON’T LAUGH DON’T FUCKING LAUGH!!!! I made it. Barely.
Next he did some craniosacral therapy. It’s like chiropractics meets really good scalp massage. At this point he changed out the fancy rocks for a couple of rocks that looked like the ones I dug up in my garden while I was putting in bulbs last week. But there was still a light one and a dark one. When he put his hands on my head, they smelled like the vanilla water, but also like smoke from the incense and from some wood from a special tree he had burned at some point. So it had the end result of smelling like burnt sugar cookies. He said it was normal and good at this point to have visions. Alright, visions, here we go! This is where we bust out the peyote, right? No? Shrooms? Salvia? No? I just lie here while you rub my head and I’m supposed to have visions? Whatever man…
You die hard fans know I have a thing for cranes (the bird, not the construction equipment). I sport a wicked crane tat on each arm, and my character in Mage can turn into a giant crane. And feel free to call this next part power of suggestion because of the thing he said about visions, and I won’t fight you on it. But while I was lying there, holding rocks and smelling burnt cookies, I was just sort of letting my mind wander and picturing random images, and one came into my head of a crane at the top of a mountain, waving his wing at me like he wanted me to follow him. You’re laughing. Stop laughing.
The Shaman asked me to slowly get up off the floor and come back to the Mesa, where he did a few more chants with the staff, and the ceremony was complete. Then we sat and chatted for a bit about my experience. Of course he got super excited when I told him I saw a crane, and said it’s my power animal and it’s a great power animal to have because they have their feet in the water and their heads in the sky. He said to take the rocks home with me - that explains why he changed out the fancy ones for cheap ones. I’m supposed to meditate with them a couple of times a day, and keep around me as much as I can, with the light one on my left and the dark one on my right. And get this - at the winter solstice, I’m supposed to go out and bury the dark one.
And that was my day of Shamanistic healing. It’s been six days now, and I have indeed had headaches since then. But the weather has been just awful, and when it gets like this my migraines go into super mega overdrive. I can’t blame the weather on the Shaman. (Or can I?) I have the rocks at my desk right now. I don’t care how retarded it sounds, I’m going to follow through with the whole thing and bury the dark one at the solstice. Pharmaceuticals have continued to fail me, so why not give this a shot? The sun is out today, and my head feels alright, so that’s a good sign. Is it because my meds are working? Is it because nobody has exceedingly pissed me off today? Or is it because last week I got spit on by an Indian? I suppose it remains to be seen. At the very least, I decided when I left, this would make for a good blog post. And it did, right? Right?
Scene: My parents’ house, a couple of weeks ago.
Me: So I’m going to see a Shaman for my headaches.
Mom: A what?
Dad (preoccupied, from the other room): A “medicine man.”
Me: You know, like, a spiritual healer.
Mom (understandably skeptical): And what does a “spiritual healer” do?
Me: I dunno. I guess I’ll find out. He’s an Indian.
Dad (still in the other room): A computer Indian or a casino Indian?
<facepalm>
The man is, in fact, a Native American, and I went to see him yesterday.
I took the afternoon off work, so right there you know it’s worth the $90. I took the interstate to a U.S. highway to a state highway to a long stretch of gravel that led me to the compound. There was a nice big house with a wrap around porch, and a small portable building off to the side. This was the Lodge, where we were supposed to meet. I opened the door and went into a little waiting area. I didn’t see anyone, so I called out, “Hello?”
“Hello!” I heard from inside the lodge. The Shaman came out to greet me. He was a tall guy with a ponytail and loose, white linen clothing. “You must be Beppy! Good to see you!” And he gave me a hug. Okay, we greet strangers with hugs here. I can roll with that. “Come on in,” he said. He didn’t have the stereotypical deep-registered, overly stressed consonants, Indian voice going on. He sounded more like a professor. He led me into the main room, where he had a blanket spread out out on the floor about the size of a twin bed. It was covered in rocks and candles and incense burners and feathers and snake skins and vials full of various oils andherbs (oh ho ho what have we here? sadly, I never found out.) There was stuff laid out on the blanket that looked both casino-Indian and computer-Indian, in addition to Mexican saint candles, African masks, and in the center of everything, a Buddha. Sure, why not?
He sat down on one side and invited me to sit down on the other. “This is my Mesa,” he said. “I’ve been making some important tweaks to it since you confirmed our appointment yesterday.” He asked me to tell him about my headaches, and I gave him the same spiel I’m used to giving a new doctor - they run in the family, they’re worse when it rains, pills have little to no effect, etc. He asked me if I had had any trauma in my life. I told him that, while I hadn’t had anything happen to me that normal people would consider trauma, I had been so incredibly hypersensitive growing up that the smallest things seemed at times traumatic. Then he asked me about my spiritual life. I told him I had been raised Catholic, dabbled in Buddhism, and now, if people asked, I told them I was a teapot atheist. After he had gathered that pertinent information, we were ready to begin.
Along one side of the mesa, there were a bunch of staffs lined up in something like a sword holder, but it was full of sand. There had to have been at least 20 staffs. I don’t know how he knew which one “spoke” to me. He took one out, laid it across the top of my head, and called on all the powers of the universe to help rid this woman of the headaches that have been plaguing her for so long, and to let her live her life to its fullest, yadda yadda yadda. The whole time I was just like, don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh. Turns out that was going to be a recurring thought pattern that afternoon. Don’t get me wrong - I really wanted to take this seriously and get something out of it, but…come on. He ran the staff up and down the sides of my body a couple of times, then sat it on the floor in front of me and had me step forward over it, symbolizing moving into the future. Then he put it behind me and had me step backwards, symbolizing (somehow) getting rid of the past. Then I stepped over it to the left, and then to the right. Then I did a little Irish sword jig.
Then he started spitting on me.
How’s that for a cliffhanger? Part 2 by Wed. at the latest.
Sorry Part 2 is so late. Midterms, Spring 2010 registration, and now it’s NaNoWriMo again. I think Part 1 is going to be the best out of any of them, though, because during the first day I hadn’t started making a concerted effort to avoid her. I’m sorry I didn’t spend more time around her for writing material, but after all, I was on vacation.
Okay, in this little nugget, I’m going to give Paula some credit for doing a good deed. On day three, we rented a catamaran to take us around the bay, and Paula was chatting up the two crew members. They were both Mexican. This is important to remember. She told them where we were staying, and said she’d give them the contact info for the people that worked there so maybe they could drum up some business with future guests. Nice, right? So she gives the Mexican crew the phone numbers and says, “But don’t call Maria. She doesn’t speak English.” I almost did a spit take with my cerveza.
Okay, let’s talk about the dolphin encounter. I’m getting this story second hand, but I’ll try to do it justice. On day 5, out group went to Vallarta Adventures to participate in their various guided excursions. My dad and I spent the day in the mountains, hiking, riding mules (I swear my mule was retarded), zip lining, and repelling through the jungle. It was the coolest thing ever. On the first day, when we were talking about what activities we were all doing, she said very proudly, “Well I’m doing the dolphin encounter because I wanted to do something spiritual. “ Yea, okay. Don’t get me wrong - I think dolphins are awesome. It’s just…how is standing in a kiddy pool with a dozen strangers and taking turns to pet a domesticated animal spiritual? But Paula was going to have a magical, spiritual experience. And if she was going to have a magical, spiritual experience, she HAD to have an audience.
So I guess when Paula had originally signed up for the encounter, Steve’s mom and her lady had agreed to come watch. But by day 5 of the trip, they hadn’t gotten very much alone time, and I’m guessing they didn’t feel like having any more Paula time. So they told her they were thinking of just staying at the hacienda. She flipped. “You promised you would come watch me we’ve been planning this for months blah blah blah” etc. Okay, seriously, why is it important that people watch you? Her husband was going to be watching anyway. But she wouldn’t be happy unless there were at least three people paying attention to her, so they caved and headed out to the dolphin pool.
The encounter was supposed to last 45 minutes or so. Paula lasted 15. I’m so pissed I can’t find the clip from “I Love New York,” but from what I hear it was something like that. As soon as they put food in the water for the dolphins to eat, she jumped out in a panic and she was done. Listening to her talk about it at dinner that night, you’d think she had been cage diving with great whites. “Oh my gawd, I felt like I was bait! It was a feeding frenzy! Those things are wild animals!” I’m sure her husband’s glad he shelled out the $150 for that “spiritual experience.” I bet she wishes the Japanese were there to save her.
I was planning on doing a Part 3, but I kind of doubt I will. Got a novel to finish lol. It’s also National Blog Posting Month and you’re supposed to post every day, but I don’t get why they made it the same month as NaNoWriMo. Well, I kind of do. I think it’s so if you don’t really have an idea for a novel and you’re fucking sick of seeing your friends tweet their word counts, you can have something to feel good about. I’ll try next month to post every day.
Buenos dias, amigos! I’m blogging this week from beautiful Bucerias, Mexico, just down the bay from Puerto Vallarta. My mother-in-law rented a seven bedroom villa for the week to celebrate her birthday, and we’re livin’ it up like rich sons of bitches. Cast of characters(try and keep track): me and Steve, my parents, mother-in-law and partner, partner’s ex-sister-in-law, partner’s mother, two of mother-in-law’s friends, and three of partner’s mother’s neighbors. Steve and I are, of course, the youngest people here by 20+ years. The rest are between 50 and 75. 13 of us total.
Let’s talk about the political breakdown - you’ve got liberal Beppy and Steve, Beppy’s liberal parents, and Steve’s politically apathetic mom and libertarian lady friend - but it doesn’t matter what their actual views are because they’re teh lezzies, so they’re lumped in with us. And then you have everybody else. Retirees from gated communities in Texas. Need I say more? Most of us have an unspoken understanding: we know we don’t agree, and we’re on vacation, so we’re just gonna keep our mouths shut about politics. Easy, right? Wrong for a gal we’ll call Paula - my Mexico edition Douchebag of the Week. I don’t think she made an effort to stir shit about politics, though. She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut about fucking anything. I have decided, after breaking 100o words talking about out first day, to go ahead and break my accounts of her antics up into parts. Enjoy Part 1.
Paula is from New Jersey, so when you read the stuff she says, you have to read it in the voice Barbara Streisand x100. I came in with an open mind trying to be friends with everyone, and I ended up sitting next to her at lunch on our first day in town. Our in house cook (I know, right?!?) was off on Sunday, so we went to a small cafe down the street. The place closed at 2:00 and we got there at 1:30. You might expect them to be out of a few things and not planning on making another batch, right? They didn’t have brownies or cinnamon rolls and her fat ass got all pouty and she started getting really short with the waiter. Then when it came time to pay. Aye, chineras. She pulled out an American $20 bill. It’s a tourist town, so they took it, but they gave her change in pesos. Now remember - we’re in Mexico. In Mexico, the official form of currency is the peso. Right? Right?
Well she wasn’t having it. She looked at the pesos with a look of utter disgust on her face that I’ve come to know very well throughout the week. “What is this here? I gave you American money, I want American money back!” The waiter, and eventually the owner, tried to explain that they can’t go to the bank to change everything out, and everyone here takes pesos, so what’s the problem? I told her she could go back to that jewelry place she had told me she was going back to and they would take the pesos and there wouldn’t be any difference made. (Granted, this place was giving us a 10 to 1 rate of exchange instead of the actual 12.8, so yes, she was losing 2.8% of her $10 or whatever it was. But I consider that a pretty low convenience fee for accepting foreign currency). But she was all “Well I’m very upset now I’m never coming back here blah blah blah,” and making us and pretty much the whole restaurant uncomfortable. Can you imagine trying to pay in pesos in America, succeeding, and then getting pissed that your change is American money?
And then–and then–the waiter tells her that other places might not take American money if it has a tear on it. I never ended up running into that problem all week, but this was the first day so we didn’t know any better. She leaned over to me and said, “That’s why this is such a poor country, because they’re so funny about their money, they won’t take anything with a tear on it.” What? WHAT? Folks, I’m not an economist, but…WHAT?
During the lunch, I mentioned that I go to a chiropractor. She asked if it was expensive and I said, “no, I actually get x number of free visits on my HMO, which is really kind of random cuz there’s other, more important stuff that it doesn’t–
“–you must work for the government then, if you have such good insurance.” She said something about death panels and I changed the subject to my cats.
That night at dinner, the oldest woman in our group said they were taking away her social security cost of living raise to go to medicare. Okay, lack of raise SUCKS, I admit. But at least she had her facts straight about where it was going. Then Paula jumped in with, “Oh well you’re not gonna have medicare. Or social security. And it’s all because of B.O. But we’re gonna get rid of him. There are millions of us working to get rid of B.O., because this isn’t China.” I find that offensive to the Chinese. My Chinese friends all smell fine to me.
This last part I really do not understand, like, at all. If you can shed any light on what the fuck she’s talking about, please let me know. We were making friends with the restaurant owner, and he was showing us pictures he took of a sea turtle laying eggs on the beach. She says, “Well you know who has all of those - Miss Pelosi. And the fish.” Nancy Pelosi has all the fish and turtle eggs? Really? Why? How? WHAT?
That’s all for now. Stay tuned for more soap opera - emphasis on the word “opera.”
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