Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Toilet Bowl Confessions and Other Stories

There are some things that happen to me here that I immediately deem blog worthy, but are not funny enough to devote a whole entry to. Below, you will find a list of things I deem funny, but not whole blog funny.

• The mosquitoes have a little hideout in my shower. Therefore, whenever I go into the bathroom to pee, a swarm attacks my legs. As I stand there, urinating, I can feel them biting my ankles. The first few times this happened, I slapped at the mosquitoes mid-stream, spraying pee all over the shower curtain. Now, I just accept the inevitable. We must never share this with my host mom.

• My host “Dad”, Bairon, is a 29 year old construction worker with grills on his teeth, yet loves old black and white ranchero and mariachi movies on TV.

• Necio is afraid of mice.

• One day, I walked home from the local pulperia and walked up to a group of family and neighbors sitting on my porch. My host mom asked me if I had a banana in my pocket. I, in fact, did have a banana in my pocket, and started laughing hysterically. None of my family or neighbors understood why.

• A story about gay marriage came onto the evening news which prompted the following from my host family:

Ania: “No, no, no! It is the end of the world! The end of the world, these gays! Against the will of God!”

Memo: “It is a disgrace. Disgusting.”

Bairon: “Terrible. Just terrible.”

Memo: “But with two women, it’s cool, right?

Bairon: “Oh, totally.”

Memo: “Totally.”

Me: (beating my head against the wall).

• My butcher gave me a ride into town the other day. He told me that he had lived in South Carolina for a few years. When I asked him how he’d liked it, he told me that it was nice, “but there was quite a bit of prejudice there. I really disliked how some people would call me a spick or other bad names there”. I responded by telling him that I was sorry that he had experienced that.

“Also, there were a lot of Blacks there, and I don’t like those people at all”.

“Oh”.

• Costa Rica is a Catholic country but most children are born out of wedlock, and prostitution is legal.

• I am no longer afraid of, yet even welcome, cockroaches. This is because I know that they will not give me dengue or malaria or lay eggs in me or anything like that. The worst they will do is eat the crumbs off my floor or scare the shit out of Necio.

When you live in the tropics, you learn to put things in perspective.

• Children’s games are locked in the 1950s. Marbles is the big game, and now tops are the rage. I’m just waiting to see if jacks make it to the streets. We should expect pogs in about 40 years.

• I asked my host mom what her favorite food was. She said that it was rice and beans. I almost smacked her.

• I am yet to see a spice rack in this country.

• It finally happened. My host mom managed to get every single starch onto one plate. Chicken broth with potatoes, noodles, rice, corn, and yucca. People ask me how I’ve lost weight living in this country. “I try not to eat the food” is my usual reply.

• I saw a crackhead steal a half eaten sandwich, not because he was hungry, but because he thought he’d be able to sell it for enough money to buy a hit.

• I get cat calls whenever I walk down my street in my gym clothes. These are of course from overweight married women in their forties.



To Be Continued…….

No comments: