Monday, January 02, 2006

The story

Well... Here's a story no one has ever heard before. I went to Cancun this past summer with my family, and I spent a week there, and in that time, for one day I was totally sick. I mean, just completely throw up everywhere spend the day half dressed kind of sick, whilst my family went out scuba diving. I had a looooong day at the hotel, and some weird stuff happened, all of it within 50 feet of my room.

First off, the day I got sick was also the day Natalie Halloway disappeared in Aruba, so I, being in the sick state that I was, got paranoid like no ones business. Room service came by at about 11:30, and I refused to let them in unless they slipped some sort of identification under the door. They went on to the next room, and when they came beck, I started shouting random words I remembered from the Spanish subtitles of Nickolodeon TV shows I had been watching. Roughly translated, I told them something about a large cow eating food. I think. At about Noon, I decided I was hungry, and went downstairs to try and bargain with the hotel gift shop into giving me a meal for the 40 pesos I had. I brought a coke, a pb and j sandwich, a bag of chips and an ice cream thing to the counter and put the 40 pesos down. The counter person told me I only had enough money for the drink and chips. I told her I wouldn't hold it against her if she gave me the other stuff for free. I said I hadn't eaten since last night, and my family had left me to snorkel for the day, and wouldn't have a chance at food for a while. She gave it to me, free of charge. I ate all of it before I got back to the room, and took the elevator back up.

Inside of the elevator was the next incident, because a bunch of kids on a high school spring break came in with me. Keep in mind I was paranoid, and they were drunk. I stood in the back corner and kept to myself. One of the louder kids was obviously terribly drunk for just after noon, and I tried to feign disinterest. They got off about three floors below mine, and as the doors were shutting, I nailed him in the back of the head with the coke bottle. Then, for the rest of the trip up I stared at all of the signs in the elevator. One struck me as unusual, in my sick and paranoid state. It read, "In case of fire, use stairs." I punched it and yelled very loudly, "In case of fire, stop drop and roll! That's one thing America was at least able to teach its children about fire safety that Mexico's elevators have yet to learn." I was definitely screwed up. I only remember because I wrote it all on my boarding pass when I got to the room.

My family came by later, and I was feeling better. I decided I was well enough to go out to dinner with them. Huge mistake. I got to the restaurant, and immediately started feeling horrible. I told them I had to leave, but my Dad was just, "Can't you stay with us for a meal?" When I made it evident I couldn't, he gave me some money to either catch a bus or get a taxi. He actually hailed a taxi right there, asked for the fare, and gave it to me. But that was only after I told him I refused to ride the bus and we had a big argument about it. I told him I'd rather walk than ride the bus, and as I slipped into a more delirious state, I walked.

Five miles to my hotel, in the dark, on the streets of Cancun, during the middle of spring break. I really don't know what was up with me. I walked all the way to the hotel, but realized I was also starving, and went to the combination gas station/money changer/McDonald/subway. I convinced myself that they subway would be the best, and I ordered it and ate it outside. It was disgusting, and I threw up the part that I ate almost immediately. I then hailed a cab to take me from literally across the street up to the hotel (to be fair, it was on a steep slope) and then I stumbled into my room. I don't think I'll ever forgive my dad for wanting to make me ride the busses of Cancun alone, and then letting me walk back to the hotel. A lot of stuff happened on that walk, stuff too scary to tell here, and none of it I want to remember.

Well, that's the story of the Cancun sickness (which was not, by the way, Montezuma's revenge).

1 comment:

elasticwaistbandlady said...

Okay, the problem with a puke story is the fact that vomiting elicits sympathy and nurturing instincts in people. Really, you should focus on a much more appealing Montezuma's Revenge tale because of the different illness dynamics involved.

For example, you can barf pretty much anywhere without repercussions but society won't allow you to have dribbling diarrhea wherever you please(amen). When you puke people will automatically ask you if you are OK, and if they can do something for you, and wish you a speedy recovery. When you have explosive diarrhea, people avoid even making eye contact with you, and you feel deeply ashamed and gross. For comedic effect you MUST milk the bowel sickness angle for laughs and leave retching stories for backup giggles.

When looking at blogs to start my own, yours came up at random from the Blogger site which I found interesting given our close geographic proximity. Anyway, I like reading blogs that aren't too stuffy, that's what talk radio is for. Hope you keep writing!