Where Am I Going, And Why Am I In This Handbasket?

Friday, October 14, 2005

Border Bandits, Toilet Papers, and Steppies

I have recently returned from 2 lil visits south of the border. My first was a day-long meeting in Nogales, Sonora. One of our major concerns in Arizona's tourism industry is that the post-9/11 climate and the creation of Depts of Homeland Security have raised The Wall even higher. How do we comply with these new security provisions and still welcome legitimate travelers to AZ? Yadda yadda yadda. So I attend this meeting south of our clusterfuck of a border and have a productive day with our counterparts and Border Gurus and our local DHS folks. I took the state van because I have no desire to tack on even more miles to the 28,000 I've already put on the barely year-old Element. On my way back to the US, however, the van is stoned by border punks and the window blown out, and the windshield cracked from the INSIDE as the rock, which was the size of a piece of pie, bounced around inside the car. I was a little put out. I now had to ride all the way back to Phoenix with a 100-degree wind blowing in my face and glass shards in my crack, and only speckles of blood and tiny cuts all over me, which once I washed left no evidence of any trauma hahaha. I didn't shed enough blood to milk it. But to maintain my Pollyanna mood I keep chanting It's Not My Car It's Not My Car all the way back. I felt better. Upon depositing the sad van back at the office, I brought the fucking rock inside with me as CSI evidence and left it on the desk of the beleagured office manager that now had a mountain of paperwork to process. Hee. Paperweight.

Last week I was in Hermosillo for a big ol AZ Showcase 2-day PR/trade/media/consumer event. I should have known my luck would turn here as well, after mocking all the delicate nancies that whine about The Water In Mexico and refuse to eat even salads because they're rinsed in Mexican water. I brag that I can brush my teeth with the water from the sink, that I can handle a couple of chugs here and there. Welllll, something went wrong, terribly wrong, and I haven't assigned blame to the food or water or whatever quite yet - but the Boom in My Bowels lasted days and days, even through the day after I returned home. UGH. And to end the trip with a flourish - my customs docs disappeared as I was on my last leg of pushing through all the immigration gates, and after an extensive search of the tiny space we could have possibly occupied between one Guy Who Stamps You to The Other, after keeping a dozen tired colleagues waiting for me, I find the fucking papers in the toilet by the luggage carousel. The TOILET! I usually hate overly-aggressive automatic flushing toilets (they splash my legs if I can't jump away fast enough) but this time I was rather relieved that my papers had a clean(ish) bowl to land in, however the fuck they managed to jump out of my purse. After fishing the papers out with only 2 fingers (formidable), wrapping them in wads of paper towel and running all the way back to the customs guards - he barely glanced at the faded document and sent me through. I offered to let him keep the form (because they're supposed to) but somehow he didn't want to. The guards and my colleagues were all cracking up, and a couple of my girls were crying with laughter. The effect I am always going for as a business person.

And now I know how to smuggle anything I want.



(...maybe I just ate too damn much on the trip?)







But if Blasting Bowels weren't the perfect end to a long week, here's a lil potrait of my domestic bliss. Wrap your head around this: the oldest steppie had his Homecoming Dance on Saturday. ACK ACK ACK. Nick went to his first high school dance and Chris and I fought all night about whether or not giving him a condom was a good idea. Of course I'm a total hag and demanded that Chris temper his realistic vision of teenlife with the overarching theme of Don't Fucking Think About It when having the Pre-Dance Talk, but it was stressful nonetheless. I'm not interested in becoming a stepgrandma before I give birth myself. I'm only fucking thirty! His little date had braces that took up her whole mouth, which was the only comfort I had to block out the vision of her shortshort dress and hooker heels that I could never aspire to walk in myself. It gave me an ulcer just wondering what they were doing all night. It didn't help that we went to see The 40 Year-Old Virgin with Carmela, who was somehow surprised that it was just a little bit raunchy. She seemed to be blaming me for it with her disapproving huffs, I could tell.

So there's a week in the life. ACK ACK ACK



Posted by Marci Twitches :: 1:46 PM :: 0 Comments:

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