P: 5/19/03

Work Diary, 5/19/03

"Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States."
- Porfirio Diaz

I'm back from Mexico, where I spent a week in a sanitized, bugless
resort on the Yucatan peninsula. The resort was great: thatch roof
cabanas, lagoon pools, white sand, and blessed, blessed air
conditioning. We visited the Mayan ruins at Tulum, where it was so hot
that as soon as the guide stopped speaking, I grabbed my sister and ran
for the shops. I swear to God I have never been so hot. At one point my
sister scraped the frost from the inside of a soda cooler and plopped
the icy shavings on top of my head; it lasted about fifteen seconds. We
didn't buy anything at the Tulum shops except a Diet Pepsi and a
chilled coconut, which the clerk decapitated with a machete so my
sister could sip its contents through a straw. It is quite clear that
on a deserted island, my sister and I would last approximately three
days, finally collapsing in the sand to be eaten by hermit crabs and
rhinoceros beetles.

While wilting in the heat one day and watching her hair become an
unruly blond helmet, my sister decided to have her hair corn-rowed like
Bo Derek in the movie "10." She felt the dozens of braids would keep
her cool, but being bo-curious got my sister more than she bargained
for. After paying the equivalent of a week's salary in Mexico, she
discovered that the tight braids - decorated with plastic beads and
wire - set her scalp on fire. She couldn't sleep without pulling her
hair, and quite frankly her head began to smell like a wet dog blanket.
Finally she started menstruating and said she was sick of sleeping on
her face. I went in search of tampons while my partner picked the
offending hair-do apart, a process involving a modified Bic razor,
tweezers, and my partner's maniacal laughter. I could hear my sister
squealing like a stuck pig all the way down the beach path.

Over dinner one night, the conversation naturally turned to dwarves.
This may have been prompted by the resort employees, who are not
dwarves but certainly very short. Most are native Indians: beautiful,
black-haired, dark-skinned, and clearly hand-picked by the resort to be
easy on the eyes. Anyway, on the topic of dwarves: My partner was once
accosted by a dwarf in a gay bar. The dwarf picked a fight with him, so
they met in the parking lot, ready to rumble. After posturing for
several minutes, the dwarf finally kicked my partner in the shin,
called him a "bitch," and ran back into the bar. I finished up our
little segue into the Land of Oz with the story of a dwarf prostitute
here in Denver, who was famous for being able to stand to her full
height on the passenger seat of a john's car. She was murdered and
found in a dumpster by - and I swear I'm not making this up - Officer
Snow White of the Denver Police Department. You can't pay for that kind
of plot.

I spent an entire week in Mexico and besides the typical "gracias" and
"hola," I also learned how to say, "Tango muchas picas." This roughly
translates to: "I have a lot of freckles." Otherwise I relied on the
resort employees' pidgin English and the jerky sign language of the
mentally challenged. I once had a thirty-minute, drunken conversation
in high school French with a Nigerian in a New Orleans bar, but it
seems Spanish turns me into a giggling idiot. I don't know why, but I
do know saying "tango muchas picas" to a Mexican waiter gets you lots
of tequila.

On the second day of our trip - Mother's Day - we started calling
ourselves "El Club de las Madres Muertas," or "The Dead Mother's Club."
Our mothers do happen to be dead, after all. I'm thinking it might be a
good title for my book. Anyway, this bit of irreverence made me stumble
on an empty niche in the clothing market: "Ugly American" T-shirts. I'm
certain they would sell. I would like to have had one during my trip, a
bit of irony at an international resort where complaining and snobbery
come in fourteen different languages.

My sister talked my partner and me into getting pedicures. The ladies
giggled while the male staff kept peaking around the corner to watch
the gringos get poked, peeled, and polished. So, yes, I am a male
employee of a multi-million dollar corporation, sitting in his office
with painted toenails. Somehow, I don't believe this is unusual, but as
the psychopath in Exorcist III says, "It's the little giggles, the
little bits of good cheer, that keep us going."

Now, back to work: two-hundred and seventy-nine emails, fifty-two
files, and a blinking voicemail light. Soon my employees will be
crowding the door, asking about my trip and then requiring answers.
Lots of answers. Also I have to train a new employee, a woman with no
experience in insurance but who interviewed better than the rest. I'm
happy to be back, in a reluctant you-have-no-choice sort of way.
Besides, I hit the road for Santa Fe this weekend. After that it's the
great metropolis of Kansas City, and then the progressive and
forward-thinking city limits of Salt Lake City, Utah.

That cosmo girl rides again!