current mood: seriously considering a career in arson
Spring Break in Rocky Point can be a difficult time for gringos, mostly because life in Rocky Point can be a difficult time for the Policia always. So when Spring Break rolls around, it’s their chance to make a little extra cash. My boyfriend Scott is walking home on the beach the other night and is mugged by a bunch of guys. Then somehow the cops show up and proceed to beat on my boyfriend some more with billy clubs. Why? I’m not really sure. Scott says it’s because he wouldn’t give them any more money.
Now, everywhere in Mexico they are saying to NEVER EVER give a cop money because it is extortion and they are ending all the corruption by getting a new police chief, new mayor, firing all the cops in town and hiring a bunch of brand spanking new ones. It says on websites and publications and makes for good reading at the border while you are waiting in the 4-5 hour lines that if a cop should ask you for money you should not give them any and follow them to the police station where you will fill out forms and pay money for said infraction there. If they insist on being paid right then and there you are to take their name, badge number and vehicle number and report them. What it does not tell you is what you should do if said cops begin to beat you with billy clubs. No time to take down names and badge numbers from the fetal position you are in as they are pounding away on your kidneys.
About this time either a cop or a mugger (same difference at this point) tries to drown Scott in the ocean by holding his head under the water. I’m not sure how or why (he’s not even sure the exact chain of events) but the muggers and cops leave and a random mangy dog has Scott by his broken nose and drags him out of the ocean. So he’s sitting there alone on the beach, beaten, bruised and soaking wet, with a dog slurping the ocean water off of his swollen face. At some point a beach security guard shows up and helps Scott to his security car where he offers him a change of clothes and a ride home. Surprisingly, the security guard did not ask for or try to beat any money out of Scott.
Well the next day Scott shows up at a bar fairly early, being all beat about the liver and kidney and broken nose and wanting a drink, and really, who can blame him? (I personally would have been on my deathbed in the hospital with a morphine drip permanently attached to my vein.) Well the bartender of this particular establishment, who I will call Johnny Vegas, proceeds to tell Scott that he can’t come into the bar for a month because it is depressing him that Scott has such bad luck and wants him to get his life together. So Scott is getting his life together this month at the bar next door.
Also, to bring a bit of Schadenfreude into it, this year’s Spring Break was a complete bust. And not the good kind of boob bust. Nobody is coming down here because it’s all scary and rapes and murders at the border, then when you get here, it’s all mugging and arrests and policia trying to take your money. All the owner’s of bars and restaurants and whatnot are saying that all this “not true and bad press” is hurting their business.
So the bar that banned Scott had these license plates made up that say “I Survived Mexico and I’m Going to Come Back!” But what I really think they should say is something like “I Survived Mexico and All I Got Was the Clap!” or “I Survived Mexico Today, But We’ll See How Tomorrow Goes!” or “I Survived Mexico, and All That Happened Was I Lost My Money, Beat Up By the Policia, Got the Clap, Banned from Most Bars, Lost My License and Passport in the Ocean and They Impounded My Car!” That last one may be a bit personal. Except for the Clap part. What is the Clap anyway? Like syphilis?
Speaking of The Clap, I once went with one of my friends who I will call Veronica to Urgent Care after her night with a bartender for what she assumed was a bladder infection. We were sitting in the room chatting and waiting for the doctor to come in, Veronica was sitting on the table and I was in an ugly orange plastic chair by the door when she busts out with, “I hope I don’t have The Clap,” really loud and echo-y in the room. It took me by such surprised and because it was so unexpected and in the middle of a completely different conversation I began to laugh uncontrollably.
I was clutching my sides and crying and leaned forward and fell out of the ugly orange chair with a huge clatter. A few seconds later the doctor pokes his head in looking all concerned by the noise and sees Veronica on the table red faced, wide-eyed and laughing and me on the floor, tears streaming down my face next to the overturned chair and asks if everything is ok. I wonder to this day if he heard the loud declaration of Veronica’s before the big crash. And what he actually expected to find when he opened the door.
Now, everywhere in Mexico they are saying to NEVER EVER give a cop money because it is extortion and they are ending all the corruption by getting a new police chief, new mayor, firing all the cops in town and hiring a bunch of brand spanking new ones. It says on websites and publications and makes for good reading at the border while you are waiting in the 4-5 hour lines that if a cop should ask you for money you should not give them any and follow them to the police station where you will fill out forms and pay money for said infraction there. If they insist on being paid right then and there you are to take their name, badge number and vehicle number and report them. What it does not tell you is what you should do if said cops begin to beat you with billy clubs. No time to take down names and badge numbers from the fetal position you are in as they are pounding away on your kidneys.
About this time either a cop or a mugger (same difference at this point) tries to drown Scott in the ocean by holding his head under the water. I’m not sure how or why (he’s not even sure the exact chain of events) but the muggers and cops leave and a random mangy dog has Scott by his broken nose and drags him out of the ocean. So he’s sitting there alone on the beach, beaten, bruised and soaking wet, with a dog slurping the ocean water off of his swollen face. At some point a beach security guard shows up and helps Scott to his security car where he offers him a change of clothes and a ride home. Surprisingly, the security guard did not ask for or try to beat any money out of Scott.
Well the next day Scott shows up at a bar fairly early, being all beat about the liver and kidney and broken nose and wanting a drink, and really, who can blame him? (I personally would have been on my deathbed in the hospital with a morphine drip permanently attached to my vein.) Well the bartender of this particular establishment, who I will call Johnny Vegas, proceeds to tell Scott that he can’t come into the bar for a month because it is depressing him that Scott has such bad luck and wants him to get his life together. So Scott is getting his life together this month at the bar next door.
Also, to bring a bit of Schadenfreude into it, this year’s Spring Break was a complete bust. And not the good kind of boob bust. Nobody is coming down here because it’s all scary and rapes and murders at the border, then when you get here, it’s all mugging and arrests and policia trying to take your money. All the owner’s of bars and restaurants and whatnot are saying that all this “not true and bad press” is hurting their business.
So the bar that banned Scott had these license plates made up that say “I Survived Mexico and I’m Going to Come Back!” But what I really think they should say is something like “I Survived Mexico and All I Got Was the Clap!” or “I Survived Mexico Today, But We’ll See How Tomorrow Goes!” or “I Survived Mexico, and All That Happened Was I Lost My Money, Beat Up By the Policia, Got the Clap, Banned from Most Bars, Lost My License and Passport in the Ocean and They Impounded My Car!” That last one may be a bit personal. Except for the Clap part. What is the Clap anyway? Like syphilis?
Speaking of The Clap, I once went with one of my friends who I will call Veronica to Urgent Care after her night with a bartender for what she assumed was a bladder infection. We were sitting in the room chatting and waiting for the doctor to come in, Veronica was sitting on the table and I was in an ugly orange plastic chair by the door when she busts out with, “I hope I don’t have The Clap,” really loud and echo-y in the room. It took me by such surprised and because it was so unexpected and in the middle of a completely different conversation I began to laugh uncontrollably.
I was clutching my sides and crying and leaned forward and fell out of the ugly orange chair with a huge clatter. A few seconds later the doctor pokes his head in looking all concerned by the noise and sees Veronica on the table red faced, wide-eyed and laughing and me on the floor, tears streaming down my face next to the overturned chair and asks if everything is ok. I wonder to this day if he heard the loud declaration of Veronica’s before the big crash. And what he actually expected to find when he opened the door.
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