“Yes on the Coffee, No Thanks on the Molestation.”Last Mexico Tourist Standing,
Dateline: Threadgill’s Local International Branch Office, Austin, Texas. The owner met Elvis Presley when he played at his club—The Armadillo World Headquarters. Elvis wasn’t first on the bill. He was third. The playbill read: Elvis Presley, Wildman Folksinger.
****New site on the way. Now how many times have I said that? No really, this time. I’m going to try a few new elements, including a “Nickle Therapy: Ask a Psychologist” which won’t be nearly as cold and clinical as it sounds. If it’s not fun, I’m out.
I’m headed back to Mexico City tomorrow. The riot is probably over, but the entertainment goes on as the city has colorful labor demonstrations most every day.
The most important thing to pack? The ability to laugh at yourself.
Because you know: “Wherever you go, there you are.”
Or, maybe that’s just me and the rest of you don’t flub up as regularly as I do. If you’re already cool, perhaps you should attempt to speak a foreign language. Adds all sorts of entertainment for the natives. Plus, you learn more about the culture. Below are a few questions I’ve answered in my ventures to the south.
1. Why are all the taxi drivers in Mexico City divorced?
To practice my fledgling Spanish (if something I’ve worked on for twenty years, yet am still on numbers and days of the week–can be called fledgling), before I take a trip, I work up a series of questions and dialogue with unfortunate taxi drivers. My family dialogue includes the question: “Are you married?” “Ás cansado?” I ask, all friendly.
I was shocked to learn that in this very Catholic country, almost all the taxi drivers in Mexico City are divorced! Why, why had their marriages proved disasters? Or, I didn’t know until–always on the alert to show off, I spotted an opportunity to go bilingual when we attended an elaborate hotel brunch in Houston, Texas, with two other slightly more sophisticated couples.
As I led off the buffet line, I noticed the omelet maker clearly did not speak English. Oh, this was a rich showoff position. While my eggs fried, I ran deftly through my practiced taxi driver family dialogue with my compadre, the omelet maker. My companions were suitably awed.
A while later, we are seated around a large round table when, my chum, the omelet maker taps me on the shoulder, the attention of the five scoping on me like a spotlight. I puffed up ready to receive his praise.
Omelet Guy: “Ma’am, you seem like a nice lady. I thought you’d want to know that when you asked, ‘Ás cansado’, I think you meant to ask me if I was married, which is, ‘Ás casado?’ Instead you asked me if I was tired.”
Good to know the taxi drivers in Mexico City are alert.
2. What’s the difference between a Cuban banana and an escort service?
One of my favorite haunts is the bar upstairs in the famous Casa Azules. I often spend part of the day enjoying the view of the Monument to the Revolution and the Belle de Artes. One afternoon the staff was serving dishes of salty dried plantain. As I headed to the baño, a waiter asked me if I’d like a plantain.
I said my version of, “Sure. That would be lovely.” On my return a handsome older man sat at my table awaiting my arrival. The waiter had asked “Señora, ¿le gustaría platicar?” Which translated to “Would you like to talk?” And clearly a lot more. Sheesh. As a woman alone in a bar, I was taken for either a call girl or an idiot. I scrabbled up my work and feigned a return to the baño, clarifying my status as an idiot.
3. With all the taxis in Guadalajara, why did I have to pick the pervert?
I hopped in a taxi at the downtown market, La Libertad. Too tired to work my dialogue I rested comfortably in the back seat. Then the taxi driver looked hard at me in his rearview mirror and asked me if I wanted to be molested. “¿Señora se le molestaría?”
All the warnings came back. So, this is the way my life was to end. People will say I died doing what I liked to do. No, more likely people will say I never did have good sense. And, as for me dying doing what I wanted to do, since when did I say I want to end my life in the back seat of a Guadalajara taxi?
I eye the door. I should jump out. He’ll have to slow down sometime, and I was out of there! He asks me again. I sputter a few pitiful ninth grade Spanish favorites in an attempt to impress upon the driver that I am not to be messed with. He sputters streams of excited sentences and points to the driver’s side glass.
He had asked me if it would bother me if he rolled down his window.
STRESS. STRESS PRONE PERSONALITY. ONLINE THERAPY. RELATIONSHIPS. BETTER MARRIAGE.
T-Shirt “If you can’t change your attitude for yourself, do it for the rest of us:
Next Post: Mexico City. 
