The end of the innocence.

The brush with death by parasitic infestation and subsequent utter dessication in Mexico City had taught me several valuable lessons.

1) Sometimes, even when it may be socially less-than-gracious, it's OK to politely refuse food and drink if you know that it probably contains foreign bodies that would enjoy nothing more than to briskly drain you of your energy, your body's resources and, eventually, your sweet life. If someone is peeved that you decline to consume an undercooked chicken neck, that person is not your friend. S/he is, in fact, Satan.

2) If one plans to nearly perish of, say, a debilitating case of the Hershey Squirts, it's handy to have someone around who fluently speaks the language of the country you are in so as to minimize actual mortality risk. "The Spirit of Adventure" can be damned all to Hell on that one.

3) One only actually means "I will never eat another thing as long as I live, so help me sweet Jesus" until one recovers from said affliction. Really, Jesus, I didn't mean it. I want to eat again. Me gusto comer.

4) Liver flukes are never your friends, no matter how much they tell you that they are.

Our last night in The Big Enchilada was spent in, of all places, an Irish pub in one of the city's swankier suburbs. And by "suburb" I mean "an urban enclave that, most likely, contained more people than the entire state of Maine." We'd deferred to Hugo to choose the restaurant on that particular evening as a hearty thank-you for dragging our whiny, white silly asses around a city the size of Switzerland. After listening to a live band cover Coldplay songs, drinking Guiness and creepy weird margaritas and, most importantly, consuming victuals that hadn't been prepared with corn products, we stepped outside into the "fresh" air of a Mexico City evening. It was at this point that a small commotion from the opposite side of the road caught our bleary, smoke-crusted eyes. Apparently, the entrance to a small apartment complex had gotten blocked by a random bar-goer and one of the tenants - a man who clearly could crush a Brazil nut out of its shell using only his neckrolls - had returned. He'd returned, and by the sweet infant Jesus and his rose-scented mother, he desired nothing more than to broach the sanctity of the complex. We came to know this because he blocked traffic on that side of the road for nearly ten minutes attempting to honk the car into petty nonexistence. When this failed - and as the sheer number of vehicles stacked behind him grew to a critical mass of unadulterated rage - he clambered into his vehicle and turned the block. Disappointed that the scene hadn't devolved into a Thai-style fistfight, we almost missed it when he returned from the other side of the block and parked next to the offending vehicle. Then, as we stood rooted to the ashy sidewalk waiting for the valet dude to return our Japanese rental car, Mr. Button-Mushroom Genitalia dug around in his pockets, withdrew a cluster of objects and then proceeded to

key the motherfeck out of some random person's car

That we were witnessing a crime in broad daylight wasn't to be disputed. Most interesting, though, was the fact that he was clearly not just scratching random lines into the [white] paint of the offender's car; no, he was noticeably drawing things and, perhaps most insidiously, writing things. We weren't close enough to have admired his artwork and, I have to be honest, even if we were I probably would have begun to sob if I'd gotten within ten feet of this particular hominid, but it gave us pause. Why take the time to festoon the vehicle with products of creativity when simply scratching the hell out of it would be just as affective?

The answer was, of course, that time was all this guy had. Time, and Honda keys. Time, Honda keys, and a predisposition for equine steroid consumption.

And a fantastically small petie.

***

Until later, I remain,

Domonic (disturbed,yetlikewatchinganaccident,onecannotturnaway) Potorti