let's talk mexico...

Now, I believe that anyone has been to Mexico will say that it’s quite possibly the most amazing place on earth. Granted, there are places that are far more beautiful, have better attractions, better oceans, better everything… but Mexico in it’s beautiful simplicity has that numbing effect of euphoric idealizations of quitting your life back home and working in an all-inclusive resort for the rest of your life. People never want to leave. When I am there, I never want to leave. On October 28th my best friend and I took off for the Riviera Maya for 4-days / 3-nights.

Let’s pause for a moment and let me introduce you to my parents. My mom and dad are creatures of habit, rarely veering from a world that they know and trust.

My father, while being quite possibly the smartest man I know, is not one who will take an undefined risk. I mean he’ll play the stock market and call it risky, but really he’s bought every book written on how to play it effectively and successfully. While some minor follies may have occurred on the road to being a stock market Billy Badass, the risks he took weren’t undefined or uncalculated. When I told my father that I planned on taking a job right out of college that was based on a salary and commission structure, while attempting to be supportive, the mere thought of having an undefined paycheck every check wasn’t a risk he could effectively calculate to a certainty. Which, this isn’t to say that he didn’t think he’d be the best at whatever he chose to do; it was more driven to the uncertainty of the whole notion. His advice was something along the lines of – well, I wouldn’t do it. I did it anyway.

My father, differing from my mother in this way, will pass a quick and non-condoning comments of distaste for things that occur. I tell him that I am planning to go to Mexico and he says, “Well, I sure wouldn’t. It’s dangerous there. You know the government is on the edge of collapse? Your choice though.” and after that we don’t discuss it farther. Like – I hear you… I’m still going. He says… I wouldn’t but ok, I hope you have fun.

My mother… God love her… Lord knows I do. She can bring herself to Defcon 10 crisis status over the simplest of things. Let’s start small. While she still to this day says this was all a joke, I’ve known this woman all of – oh I don’t know – my whole effin life and this was no joke. She called me from a Tollbooth one time on the North Dallas Tollway telling me, “The toll costs 35 cents and I threw in 40 because, that’s all I had. Where do I get my change?” To which I said, “YOU DON’T… DRIVE. Looking for change at a tollbooth is how you DIE in North Dallas!! DRIVE! I’ll give you the 5 cents.” Then this inspired my rant about the prices of the tollbooth and how no one ever has the odd change they ask for… a ploy to make more money, I call it. I digress. This is also the same woman who to this day and some of you might actually have to look up this term, BALANCES her checkbook to the penny. I mean, if she’s off by 5 cents on her side, she FINDS it. Rarely does she write this off, like the rest of us do, to not writing something down properly. Which who the hell writes shit down in a checkbook anymore? Do you even have a checkbook or friggin checks for that matter? Shit no. You log in online (probably from your phone) check your balance and move the eff on.

Which before I move on… I do have a funny story about my mom, naturally. So, when I was in college, I’d learned of this amazing thing called a Check Card. I’d been using mine for years. I happened to be down at my parent’s house one weekend and I was in the car with my mom while she was going to pick up a prescription. She was pulling out her checkbook as we waited in line. I immediately cut in on her about how checks and checkbooks were for losers. Like to this day if you’re in line at a store to purchase something and the old women in front of you pulls out her checkbook, you think OH LORD… use your ATM card already and join the 21st Century. I’m telling her how I’ve never written a check one and my life is amazingly easy and no one has ever stolen my identity. It’s perfectly safe. She inquires about what I do when I used it when I went to restaurants. She says, “So you let a waiter walk off with your card to run it for your food? Oh, no, no. I would never let my card leave my sight. They could steal your number when they walk behind the wall. Oh no, no. I would never. You should be more careful.” I laughed and continued to prod her to use her ATM card at Walgreens and see how easy it is. I said something to the effect of, “Who’d want your identity anyhow?” So much against her comfort-level, she used the ATM card at the drive-thru for her prescription. Now, I will save you the suspense to tell you that it just so happened that this person who was ringing her up at Walgreens did in-fact steal her credit card number and drained her account. While, I was floored by the news, I laughed. Hard. There I am convincing her how safe it is and then BOOM 20minutes later, her checking account is cleared out. Let’s just say that to this day, the whole ATM card thing is a bit touchy. I still find it funny. I can’t help it. She got all the money back and quickly. I mean short of a little bit of a pain in the ass, it wasn’t all that dramatic. I mean, still… it’s really kinda hilarious! I really can’t help it.

Ok, moving on. When I selected the apartment that I have lived in for going on 3-years, she panicked over the thought of my only having 1 real closet in the apartment. So there I am worrying about my apt choice for completely important reasons unlike the amount of closets it came with – it was the most expensive apt I’d lived in before and was more worried about sustaining the rent should anything happen to the job I had. You know important shit. Well, she got herself all worked up about it saying that I needed to go look at other apts and make a different decision. Now, I was past this point. I’d picked my apt and had paid a deposit fee that was non-refundable and substantial and well… I was moving in. It wasn’t up for discussion. Let’s just say that she met her Defcon 10 dramatics when I got frustrated with her and told her that I wasn’t going to continue looking and that this was my apt and that was that. The last thing she muttered before she took to the silent treatment was, “Well don’t call me when you have no space. I’m just trying to help. I don’t know why you’re snapping at me. You’re the one in the wrong here.” Sweet Jesus! She’s my mother and regardless of anything else, I apologized (eventually) and just asked her to be happy for me. She accepted the apology and said, “I just can’t be happy for your choice tho.” LOL. God love her!

So my mother’s take on Mexico was CANCEL the trip ASAP. The moment I told her I was going she began emailing me links to articles showing how bad Mexico was. I got a text telling me to check my email before I left for the trip. It was the article about the hotel in Cancun that had been hit by a bomb from the drug cartel. She followed that up with a phone call saying that she’d heard that they might be stopping all travel in and out of Mexico. I hadn’t heard (and still haven’t heard) of anything of the sort. She sent emails of alternate safer locations that I could visit instead saying that she was sure Travelocity would change my flight for the minimal cost of potentially saving my life – as I was taking my life into my own hands by “choosing” to go into Mexico. I mean, up until the day I left, she had been trying to convince me not to go.

Quick ASIDE: During this whole time, there was a very real possibility that I would be flying into Mexico and transporting from the airport to the hotel all on my own. A fact I for the obvious reasons didn’t share with my parents. Up until a couple of weeks before the trip did I find out that that wouldn’t be the case. But could you imagine that little conversation?! Shit no, I couldn’t either and so I just decided that while this fact was a bit nerve racking and stressful to me, I would just be uber safe in regards to transport, if I had to go it on my own, because damnit… I was going!!

I told both of my parents that I would text them when I got there and let them know the hotel details. It’s just good practice anyhow to let someone know where you are exactly. Plus it’d calm their frantic minds who by their imaginations freedom, I’d been kidnapped by the cartel, stolen away into the sex slave trade or at the very worse killed. Seemed a simple gesture and promised that my texts wouldn’t be blowing up looking for status updates costing me $400 in international texts. Mission accomplished.

I will say, that I texted both my mom and dad when I was on my way to the airport in Mexico. My dad responded with, “I’m glad to hear it and I will feel much better when you are on American soil. Love, Dad.” Mom chose to respond only when I texted her when we landed in the US with a, “WHEW… YAY!” To which I actually think before she texted them, she made them an emphatic verbal reality.

Ok, so let’s talk about Mexico a bit. When we arrived in Mexico, we were ushered into the security line. While being annoyed with having to wait in a line, it moved fairly quickly. The security line wasn’t the issue. The customs line, on the other hand was total mass chaos. We walk to the large room where a snake-like line had formed with little to no understanding where the end of the line actually existed. After walking the whole room and having more than 20 people first tell us that where we were standing wasn’t the end of the line and pointed us in an direction that ultimately also wasn’t the end of the line. After 5-10 minutes of complete confusion, we find what we believed to be the end of the line. There were no ropes up to keep people in order. There were no Mexican airport workers directing people. There was just MASS amounts of people who while in a quasi-line were directing other people. 5 Jamaican women had made it to the back of the line behind us. There was bitching about the line and how long it took to find the end; so much so, that I felt compelled to join in and bitch about our frustration.

Easily 2-3minutes after I’d made my new friends, the line in front of us broke up and dispersed. We thought the lines had become more organized. Which ultimately was just absurd when you really think of the absolute disorganization of the whole situation. As we progress forward inquiring as to what was happening, a lady who was in the line in front of us says, “It looks like there’s going to be a fight up there.” We’re all trying to figure out where and with who? Between the Mexican security and a passenger? Two passengers? What the hell? So what was what we considered mass chaos before, it had now turned into a disaster area. We move towards where the customs checks were happening. The 5 Jamaican women follow closely. When we get to a good view point of what was happening, we didn’t see a fight happening at all. We saw that there was no remanence of a line left. Instead people were clamoring and pushing to just make it to the roped off section to move through the customs line. It was at this point that I turned to the Jamaican women and said with the 5 of you and the 2 of us, we make a solid group. If we stick together, we’ll be 7-deep and we’ll look out for each other. They bought in without a second question. The most predominant of the 5 women took the lead. Within 2minutes and her yelling at me not to fall behind and stick together, she’d fought her way through the crowd and we were in the roped off line for the customs check. This didn’t go without several near fights that occurred as we pushed through the crowed. You’d think that once we were in the roped off area we were safe, but no. People who’d been waiting in line, clearly longer than we had, were pissed that people had made it into the customs line before they did. They started tearing down the ropes and pushing into the line. One couple was pointing out a guy in a yellow shirt who they’d known for a fact was behind them in the line originally and who was now at the customs counter in front of them and discussing beating his ass as soon as they could get to him and reminded each other not to lose sight of him. I let that couple cut in front of me. There was another guy in line with his kids yelling at his wife who was 2 rope lines away from him with a MASSIVE cart carrying several bags of luggage. He undid the ropes and instructed her to run over whoever she needed to, to be up in the line with him and the kids. He said things like SCREW THEM, PUSH THRU. She noticeably wanted to but knew that it was not the proper thing to do. Let’s just say that she gingerly ran over my flip-flopped foot. I yanked it out, side-stepped to get in front of that disaster and moved quickly to a customs counter.

You know for all the bitching we do about the good old US of A sometimes, I couldn’t help but think that no matter what, in America, this would have never happened. Shit, I’d would have been scared to even attempt a mob-setting at the US airport. With my track record, I would have ended up in jail… possibly rightfully so. Hard to say. No one at any point from the Mexican security or airport staff attempted in any capacity to help regulate the line and/or the mob rushing the customs counter. There were several moments sprinkled in there that legitimately scared me. Then I thought about that original possibility that I could have been going through all of that by myself.

Let’s also suffice it to say that when recounting my amazing trip to Mexico to my parents, I naturally neglected to share this part of the trip with them.

Once we got to the hotel, it was damn amazing. The hotel stretched at least along 2-miles of beach. It wasn’t on a strip line in Cancun other people can meander down the beach from several hotels. This beach was reserved for the occupants of the hotel. It was super relaxing. Our porch had a hammock. I love hammocks. I actually believe my love of hammocks to be unnatural. I probably spent equally as much time in that hammock reading as I did eating and swimming!

On to my ridiculousness. The 1st night that we were there, there was what they called Dorado Idle. We were staying at the El Dorado Royal and this was their karaoke version of finding the next American Idle. One of the guys that is friends with my best friend/cousin and works with her at her current company hung out with us the entire weekend. I decided that I loved him early on. He’s the type of guy you invite out when you are sitting around going – Who should we invite out that will be super fun and zero drama? Friggin SAM that’s who. So there we are watching this karaoke thing going on and Sam says to me, “What would it take you to get up there and sing something?” and I said, “Not a damn thing, I’ll do it if you sign me up.” After going back and forth on song selections, I say, “Sign me up under the name Night Hawk and put me down for Shoop by Salt n’ Pepa, and I’ll do it.” Off Amy went to sign me up. When she gets back to the table she says, “You’ll be glad to know that I just slid you into the last spot that they had open.” We all laughed. So when the last name was called… NIGHT HAWK… which was never more funny hearing it in a thick Mexican accent, I acted surprised and walked up to the stage. When I got on stage, he wanted to know what my real name was and I said my given name was Night Hawk. He stared at me. Then he says, “Are you ready?” and I (playing it up to its fullest) say, “I’m not sure. I didn’t sign myself up so I have no idea what I am singing.” Everyone laughed when they saw it was Shoop.

Now, this wouldn’t be the 1st time I have ever karaoked this song. It’s never gone well, let’s say. But it’s always funny nonetheless. The song is fast and there are words in there that I have been singing wrong for 17+ years. I expected a total disaster. But this was the 1st time that I can comfortably say that I damn near nailed this song. I mean, there was only 1 part where I had to stop and pick it back up as opposed to my usual 10-15times. For the entire weekend, people were coming up to me to tell me how amazing I was and how I should have won 1st place. (This vaguely reminded me of the drunken booty shakin’ contest that I took 2nd place in, in Vegas a couple of years ago; a different story for a different time.) There was one instance where Amy, Sam and I were at dinner and someone whispered, “Look, there’s the rapper!” LMAO. The rapper. That’s straight hilarity. I should also mention that we were in Mexico for a work trip for Amy and Sam’s company. They had meetings 1st thing in the morning and 1 in the evening but after that their time was 100% free. 95% of the hotels occupancy was taken up by people that worked for my cousins company. I found this funny when I went up on stage as Night Hawk and came down a friggin Rapper!

I will end this little blog ranting on night 1 in Mexico. I will tell you that I did drink that night. I wasn’t belligerently drunk when I sang Shoop. I had more sense than that, but I was well into several Vodka/Diets and after I sang pushing me over the edge took little effort. The last thing I remember of night 1 in Mexico was discussing in great detail how the 3 of us were going back to our hotel room and ordering hamburgers from room service; which we promptly did. In between that and when the burgers arrived, I’d passed out. What I woke up to was Sam standing over me, drunkenly wafting a hamburger under my nose saying that if I didn’t wake up and enjoy this amazingness, he was going to eat my burger and his. I took this as no idle threat. I sat up long enough to eat my entire burger and to take a bite of a RANCID piece of cheesecake that I apparently NEEDED when I was the one ordering room service.

I leave you with this… it becomes increasingly difficult to identify when a cheesecake is the WRONG color of brown (the joke here is that cheesecake should NEVER be brown) when you’ve been heavily drinking. I hadn’t needed to throw up, until that fateful bite. NOTE to you… just don’t order cheesecake in Mexico. I think we all learned a little something here. What though, I’m not really sure…