Vengeance Faeries:
A Travelogue
Friday December 30, 2005
Click here for an Easy Print Version
From Atlanta, Georgia
Reader Alert: This last Mullings of the year is a Travelogue. I haven't been paying attention to anything going on; I don't think you have either; and, this is the kind of thing which happens to me and I fervently believe - with absolutely no evidence to support it - that you want to read about it.
In any event, there is no point to this story, other than it happened pretty much the way it is presented here. For those new to the Travelogues, they tend to, um, ramble, so grab a cup of coffee and don't think you have to read it all at once; or read it at all.
To begin, let me say that I wish I could tell you that I got a gash on the bridge of my nose, a scrape on my forehead, torn slacks at the right knee (complete with a skin abrasion beneath the light tan Easy-Care pleated front slacks from Nordstrom's - $45), what I believe to be a broken right thumb, and a scratch on the right lens of my very excellent almost-new glasses because I got into a fight at a bar in Mexico defending America.
"In a little caf� just the other side of the border �"
Actually, this all happened in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico which is on the Western coast, below Baja California and not just the other side of any border.
Truth is, I tripped UP a stone stairway on my way to a taxi to take me to a hotel near the airport, which is the crux of the story.
It was one of those decisions which, when you make it, has a certain logical charm: I had a noon-ish flight back to the US, but I wanted to change to the 8:15 flight. The place I was staying was about 10 miles out of town and, given the rush hour I had witnessed upon arrival and, because I had no idea how to contact Delta from Mexico, I decided it would be a swell idea to simply find a hotel near the airport and get an early start the next AM.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Stooopid.
How was I to know that the annual convention of the International Association of Vengeance Faeries was being held in Puerto Vallarta, eagerly awaiting their chance to pick on the one person who deserved retribution for his misdeeds in 2005 more than any other: Me.
I am schlepping my manly shoulder bag, my small roll-aboard, and my larger roll-aboard (which I will check because I hate it when people attempt to shove the entire contents of their three-room flat into the overhead bin over MY head), up a set of architecturally beautiful, but (as I proved) functionally imperfect, stone steps, when I thought I had reached the top but, in fact, had one to go.
Crash, bang, boom I am lying with my face against the stone, my glasses beneath me, my luggage and manly shoulder bag strewn about and, when I touch the bridge of my nose, there is b-l-o-o-d. [Note to self: Figure out how to write a sound which represents swooning (in the fainting, not the falling-in-love) sense]
I race - well, stumble - to a bathroom and indeed there IS real live blood streaming down my face. Flash back to my Boy Scout First Aid merit badge training: DIRECT PRESSURE ON THE WOUND!
The shorthand is: I made it to the taxi with a half roll of toilet paper stuffed against my face. As this is Mexico and I am not the first Gringo he has met in his life, the taxi driver simply asks where I want to go and makes believe he doesn't see a human roll of Charmin climbing into his back seat.
I asked him to take me to nice hotel near the aeropuerto. Aeropuerto is one of the few Spanish words I know, the others being fajitas and danke sch�n.
Dear Mr. Mullings:
This is going to be plenty long enough. Spare us the Josef Mengele references.
Ok, so we drive into the hotel district and pull up to a very nice property which has, as its entryway, a gigantic reed hut - maybe 50 feet high. I wisely told the driver to wait. I might have been slightly concussed, but I knew I didn't want to sit on the curb until morning if there were no rooms at this particular inn.
I walked up to the front desk and asked the two clerks (one male and one female) for a room. They looked at me like I had just stepped out of the back - not of a taxi, but of a garbage truck - and assured me there was not, never has been, and probably never will be a room available for someone who looks like me. This, in spite of the fact that I have had the forethought to have taken my PLATINUM Amex card out of my wallet and placed it conspicuously on the counter.
"�Se�or, the woman said, ignoring the PLATINUM Amex, do you know you are bleeding?
I didn't think this was the right time to hit them with my bar fight story, so I simply nodded and adjusted the toilet paper to better hide the damage.
"The phaaaaaantom of the opera is therrrre: Inside your mind"
I asked where I might find an available room and they suggested I speak to the concierge, pointing to the concierge desk which was a good 150 feet away, but appeared to be sans concierge.
"The concierge desk," I said through my Charmin veil, "appears to be empty."
"He is just coming now, Se�or," the male said waving me away with his hands.
The concierge, at this hotel, doubles as the bellman and sure enough the bellman/concierge parked his luggage cart and took his place behind the podium.
I walked up and while he didn't shrink away in horror, he did step back just a bit. I told him my problem and he assured me there was not a room to be had between Saskatoon and wherever they filmed that Penguin movie.
I know I felt the gentle zephyr of the Vengeance Faeries' wings as they swarmed around me just outside my field of vision, enjoying this beyond measure.
"Would you mind," I asked as I placed three 20 peso notes on his counter, "calling some of the other places? Perhaps there has been a cancellation."
He picked up the phone and talked and talked and said there was a room and it was at the hotel right next door.
I walked out to the front steps of the hotel and waved for my taxi driver to come in so he could hear this in his native tongue and not have to have me saying idiotic things like, "We have-oh to go-oh to the hotel-oh, right next door-oh." Which I absolutely would have done.
I believe I heard The Vengeance Faeries make a collective sound of angry disappointment.
The peso-to-US Dollar ratio is about 10-to-one so I had given the guy six bucks. I had about 750 pesos in my wallet which I was not now going to use, so I was maybe a little generous but I wanted to further confound the Faeries.
I swear this is true: The concierge/bellman reached under his counter and pulled out a whole roll of � toilet paper � and pushed it across to me.
"Danke sehr, " I said, slipping into the local idiom. I took the toilet paper and walked to the taxi cab.
The Faeries, however, had not finished their work for this night.
We pulled up in front of the next hotel which was clearly not of the same class as the hotel which had just, effectively, thrown my butt out onto the street. I went to the desk and said that the guy from the next hotel had called and that he had been told there were rooms available.
"Si, si, Se�or," she nodded happily. "One thousand, Seven Hundred, Seventy Five pesos."
What? A hundred eighty bucks? Well, I guess when they have the last room in the Puerto, they can damn well charge whatever they want. I pulled out my PLATINUM Amex card and placed it in front of her.
Her face sagged into a sad frown. "I am so sorry, Se�or, but" pointing to a sign to my left "we do not accept credit cards."
I pulled all my USDs and all my Pesos out of my walled and I was - you guessed it - sixty pesos short.
"Is there an ATM nearby?"
"Si, Se�or." She explained that I should go out of the hotel, turn right, walk about a quarter of a mile, cross a SIX LANE HIGHWAY at the Pizza Hut, go around the corner and I would find an ATM.
I felt droplets of the tears being expressed by the Vengeance Faeries as they laughed and clutched their sides in glee.
I made the trek, found the machine, got another 500 pesos, walked back (avoiding death and destruction because the bump on the noggin had made my depth perception a little dicey and I had some trouble judging the actual distance of on-coming trucks and busses) paid her the additional 60 pesos and asked where the restaurant might be.
Her face sagged - again - into a sad frown. "I am so sorry, Se�or. The restaurant closes at 10 PM.
It was now 10:05 PM. Had I run to and back from the ATM machine I would have made it.
"Well," I said, I didn't have any money for dinner anyway, so it doesn't matter.
Her face sagged into a sad frown. "This is an all-inclusive rate, Se�or. There is no additional charge for the dinner."
The Vengeance Faeries were beside themselves.
The room was spare, but fine. Internet was not an issue because it was not available, so I went to sleep programming myself to awake at about 5:30 so I could get to the airport and change my ticket.
The next morning, armed with my mucho pesos, I took a cab to the airport and plunked myself in front of the Delta check in counter. I told the agent that I wanted to leave before my scheduled flight and needed to have a ticket re-issued.
Oh. A word about my broken right thumb. I am left-handed, so I counted myself lucky that my right thumb was wounded.
Here's a quiz: How many functions - even for a left-hander - involve the use of the right thumb?
Answer: ALL OF THEM!
Try to tie your sneakers without using one of your thumbs. Then go from there.
"No problem, Se�or," the Delta agent said, looking at me strangely.
Because I was no longer actively bleeding, I had forgotten about how I looked. I would have been better off taking the toilet paper the bellman/concierge had given me and wrapped it around my head like that guy who played the Prefect of Police in "Casablanca" and also played the title role in "The Invisible Man." Who was that, Walter Slazak?"
Walter Slazak? What in the world made you think of Walter Slazak? It wasn't Walter Slazak, you dope, it was Hans Conreid.
No. It was NOT Hans Conreid. Hans Conreid was the narrator on the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons.
Oh, yeah. Who am I thinking of?
We'll ask The Lad; he'll know.
Well?
Claude Raines.
Arrrggghh! That's was I was going to say before I said Hans Conreid.
You were not.
Was too.
This was at about 6:30 in the morning. At 7:45 they had finally figured out how to do it and not because they enjoyed looking at my chiseled features for all that time.
Throughout this process the Vengeance Faeries (I suspect this was the Vengeance Faerie pool - those who had agreed to get up early, make my life miserable, and report back to the full group later) were giggling behind their hands as, at one point, SEVEN men were crowded around the computer trying to figure this out.
If these guys had been at the Alamo, 157 feature-length movies would have never been made.
I asked if there were any first class seats available. Non-stop Puerto Vallarta to Atlanta is way, WAY longer than I will sit with people who are flying with live chickens in wicker baskets. And, as this leg was going to push me over the 125,000 actual miles flown on Delta for the year (bankruptcy was not my fault), I want to sit in the front and be pampered.
Their collective faces sagged into sad frowns. "We're sorry Se�or, this is a one-class airplane.
When an airline employee tells you there is only one class it never means the one class is First. It always means it is steerage.
The rear guard of the Vengeance Faeries were now falling to the ground, they were laughing so hard.
I settled for an aisle seat in row 15 and begged them not to put anyone in the middle seat.
As we taxied toward the runway I think I saw the Vengeance Faeries high-fiving one another. These must have been older Faeries, because I'm certain the younger ones would use that knuckle-to-knuckle thing that excellent athletes and fat guys in the stands do to one another.
The end of the story is this: The flight from Puerto Vallarta to Atlanta was fine. There was no crowding at international arrivals so I sailed through immigration and customs. I was upgraded on the flight from ATL to DCA and I am safely home.
Waiting for my bag at Reagan National, I thought that perhaps a junior Vengeance Faerie was assigned to follow me as my bag was the last one to come out of the chute before the belt shut down.
The Vengeance Faeries obviously decided I was not worth cutting their trip to Puerto Vallarta short.
It was Delta.
Happy New Year.
On the Secret Decoder Ring today: Two Mullphotos: One of my face, and one of the airplane Delta uses for the non-stop Puerto Vallarta-Atlanta flight.
--END --
Copyright © 2005 Richard A. Galen
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