cow lips

Someone once said life is about the journey, not the destination.


That is not only good theology, it is also good travel advice.


My two prior tours to Guanjuato and Morelia were bus tours.  Not so the trip to Mexico City.  As pleasant as the bus was, it would have been a brutal ride all the way to the capital.


Instead, we took a bus to Guadalajara and flew from there.


With the exception of the Manzanillo airport (which is the equivalent of a regional airport), I have not been in a Mexican airport since the turn of the millennium.


And I was pleasantly surprised.  The Guadalajara airport is sleek and efficient.  Almost germanically sparkling.  With nearly every food offering you could find at the Dallas airport -- and some of the same.


I must have been in a retro mode because I decided to refuel at Burger King.  Who knows why?  Maybe it was the memory of the only time I would stop at Burger King in Salem -- when I took Jiggs to the veterinarian.


Now and then, it is as if life decides to amuse us with a play.  In Guadalajara, it decided on a three-act playlet.


I barely sat down when it began.  A smiling young Burger King employee came on stage delivering an order to a woman of a certain age sitting two tables away from me.


In an English accent (somewhere near Sussex, I would surmise), the customer abruptly said:  "Vinegar."


The Burger King employee answered politely in Spanish:  "No, señora."


English Woman:  "I didn't ask a question.  I want vinegar."


BK:  "No, señora."


EW:  "You don't have vinegar?"


BK:  "No, señora."


EW:  "Certainly you have malt vinegar."  [Perhaps thinking that if an entire category is not available that a subcategory might be.]


BK: "No, señora."


EW: "Intolerable. The Burger King at home has malt vinegar. Are you certain?" [With rising exasperation.]


BK: "Si, señora, vaca gorda."  [Delivered quickly, but with the same smile she had worn throughout the encounter.]


It was like watching Octavio Paz's The Labyrinth of Solitude appear in human form.  The Mexican smile covering resentment of the irrational demands of the powerful -- but with a well-aimed dart at the center. 


I suspect the Burger King employee had no idea by using "fat cow" she had chosen the very term that will deflate or madden any English woman ahoof.


I felt like jumping to my feet and giving her an ovation.  A first rate performance.


People sometimes wonder how places such as Egypt and Tunisia can erupt so quickly and overthrow their rulers.


The answer is easy.  Many people throughout the world are forced to wear similar masks.  And, sometimes, the masks crack.


But tourists will continue to make stupid comments.  The Mexican smiles will go on.  And the tourists will go home telling tales of how the Mexican people are so happy with their lot.  (Well, maybe not the English Impatient.)


And, as long as all that keeps happening, this blog will live forever.