The Royal We

We had a new contestant enter the game and so the time to remember the fallen is over... after one day. So here are the new scores:

Drug cartels and food poisoning: 2
Calen and Colten: 17

Even though food poisoning and cartels technically constitutes the formation of a new team, we will allow them the points won by swine flu due to the fact that they are at a heavy disadvantage in the overall standings. Were not about to give up our hard earned points, so its only fair to make a concession for them.

All those scoring politics aside, it isnt often that one gets to truly enjoy the unparalleled bliss of simply being alive. It is something that often goes unnoticed. However, its much easier to be aware of it when contrasted against the very real and (for 9 hours at least) omnipresent specter of meeting one's doom just after careening off of a go-kart-track-curvy, vertically banked mountain road while sitting inside a bus that has no business going that speed or taking turns that a rabbit would have a hard time managing. The funniest thing was that on the back of the bus was a little decal that read "velocidad controlado." Im not sure what they set their speed control thingy at, but - think it was the same setting as whatever they use for NASCAR. In the end, we arrived at our destination safely. So thanks to whoever was driving and thanks to whatever god to which someone sacrificed a pot bellied pig on behalf of our safety during this trip.

There was one other little hiccup on the voyage that, in hindsight seemed foreshadowed. But i didnt heed the warning as my intuition, nay, common sense had been debilitated by what westerners know as "churro drunk." We needed water for the long bus ride as i think bus toilet water falls under the category of water you arent supposed to drink in mexico. So we went to the store and i just grabbed the two biggest bottles of water i could find. 2 liters each, if youre dying to know the total. Thats 4 liters total if you went to american public school. Booyah, take that you failing American social infrastructure. When we got to the bus station Calen popped one open, accompanied by an unfamiliar hissing noise in the context of bottled water. He then discovered, much to his consternation that the water i had selected, strictly for the sake of gluttony, was carbonated. He then went on and on and on about how gross it was and how he was going to beat my ass (a common occurrence on this trip that has yet to come to fruition) and told me to try it. I did. I took a long, long drink and even pretended to be refreshed, even though it was just for pretend. He looked at me like i was crazy and questioned my sincerity. I stuck with my story. He insisted we throw it out, but i insisted to the contrary. In the end, we all boarded the bus, the carbonated water being included in that particular use of the pronoun, and sat in the very back seats in front of the bathroom.

We all, still including the water, fell asleep to the sweet sound of a spanish cartoon retelling the story of Noah's Ark. This film was selected by the bus company, presumably so that all the children on the bus could learn what a wrathful and destructive deity the catholic god is. At a certain point in the night, i awoke to discover three things. Calen had moved to a different row of seats. I looked out the window and saw that the bus was about three inches from the side of a cliff with no guardrail while pulling a 7 G turn (this only concerned me because in an effort to travel light, we had selected not to pack our G suits). And, possibly worst of all, my socks were very wet.

At first i thought i had cut my leg while somnamburesheathing a samurai sword (the sword of destiny) that Ive been carrying around mexico ever since our trip to the chinese holistic medicine store and as a result, i was bleeding into my sock. But even in my sleepy haze my deductive reasoning kicked in and i knew that was impossible because both my socks were wet and i had traded the sword just hours before to a kid in oaxaca for his last 16 churros. This left only one other option. The bus toilet had broken and water and whatever else there is in bus toilets was leaking out of the bathroom. I panicked and leaned forward to begin my analysis of the situation where i was promptly squirted in the face with water and whatever is in bus toilets. The squirt in the face sobered me out of my sleep and my churro intoxication and i discovered the source of the water was not a bus toilet but one of the carbonated 2 liter bottles of water. Im not sure whose to blame, but i knew i had to act fast. So i found the hole, covered it, took it to the bathroom and put it in the sink. I went back to my seat, pleased with my handling of the situation. Moments later i realized it would be a much more efficient solution to go and just empty the bottle completely rather than letting pressurized mineral water spray all over the bathroom as we all (still including the water) rode the tilt-a-whirl down the mexican federal highway. So i went and did that and then returned to my seat even more pleased with myself.

Then my socks continued to get wet. If you private school kids remember, there were 2 bottles. Whatever had attacked and punctured the first one, proceeded to attack and puncture the second. Knowing exactly how to resolve the situation, i remained calm... and proceeded to resolve the situation. There was a lot of proceeding going on including when the bus driver proceeded to take the bus onto an olympic slalom course, with moguls. I guess it was a shortcut or a gas saver or something. But his proceeding proceeded to cause me to proceed to be thrown out of the bathroom slamming the door into the knees of the guy sleeping next to it. He didnt kick my ass. In fact he was very understanding. And when morning came i learned something new. Just before i got off the bus, I learned that i knew how to say, "Sorry about slamming the door into your knees last night." in Spanish. I did not know that about myself.

Also, Mexican teenagers have taken to the habit of mistaking Calen for a rockstar of some kind. They dont ever know what band hes from, they just know there is a band and hes part of it. We (no longer including the bottled waters) decided that since they all seemed so sure, theres no reason to dash their hopes and dreams of having their photo taken with an american rockstar. So when they ask, we answer, "hes in a band called tacomatadietas." Thats the name of a taco shop we saw in mexico city and it means diet killer taco.

Oh yeah. And Calen threw up.

I checked and the Einstein's Quantum Energy Balls is failing to make headway in the ligislative processes necessary to get a street named. So here's a new suggestion. Lets try Anton von Leeuwenhoek's Microscopic Coccidia Boulevard. Come on people. If a small group of mexican anarchists can vandalize an entire major city, we can get a street named after a scientist's balls.