No Gals in Nogales

I have decided that I need to intersperse my epic-length stories with a few of shorter length so that I might post a bit more frequently. With that in mind, this post will be comparatively brief; a bit of fluff, really, that I am including here primarily because I have a picture to accompany it. I thought this particular piece of damning evidence might be amusing to my good friend, Jeff K.; since he is responsible (or to blame) for
me starting this blog on the first place, I am including it as a reward (or punishment) especially for him.  Jeff, no peeking at the picture until you've read the story (which you've probably already heard, anyway).

This is probably one of the few stories I have which occurred through no fault of my own.  It was in the spring of 1995; I was a virile, 24-year-old stallion, as you will see in the accompanying photo.  I was living in Phoenix at the time, and it happened that my parents and some relatives were converging on the retirement village in Tucson where my grandparents lived. I made the short trip to Tucson to stay for a few days, and since this particular part of my family was scattered across the country and rarely got together, we made the most of it by going on a number of family outings. One of these outings was to Biosphere 2.  Biosphere 2, if you recall, was a highly-publicized science experiment that was supposed to simulate a space colony or something by being completely self-contained.  The experiment bombed out in front of the whole world when it turned out that the scientists were sneaking out and smuggling food back in, if I recall correctly.  Anyway, by the time we got there it was no longer sealed off and was sort of a research station/tourist attraction.  It was interesting, but I only mention it here because this is where the picture was taken.  Notice how interested I look.

Anyway, we followed up this excursion with a day trip to Nogales, Mexico.  Believe it or not, despite living in Arizona for nearly a decade and a half, this is the only time I ever made it to Mexico.  If you've ever been to Nogales, you know why.  I don't remember much about the city, aside from the fact that it was (with all due respect to our neighbors to the south) an armpit.  Nogales is the kind of place where you could easily imagine waking up in a dirty bathtub full of ice with one of your kidneys missing.  That's a real thing, I swear.  I had heard about it on the news, or something.

Anyway, aside from my dad and myself, all of our party were women, who were there for one thing: shopping.  My aunts and cousin were particularly excited about the fact that you could haggle with the vendors; apparently, buying cheap tourist-y crap becomes an exhilarating adventure if you can have an uncomfortably intense semi-polite argument with a stranger first.  So, while my parents preferred to stay near the more reputable-seeming shops, my female relatives wandered into a shadier-looking area where vendors were selling junk out of tents.  I tagged along with them, figuring they would need me to protect them from kidney thieves and kidnappers who would sell them as sex slaves.  This almost definitely saved their lives, as we did indeed encounter a very shady character (cue scary music).

This gentleman had seemed nice enough at first.  He and my cousin haggled for several minutes--have I mentioned that I hate haggling?  I can't even negotiate the price of a car.  I have bought a car at a dealership by myself exactly two times at a dealership; on both occasions, when the salesman told me the price of the car/dungheap, my response was "Great!  I'll take it!"  I practically tipped them.  They love people like me at car dealerships.

Anyway, my point is that I got really, really uncomfortable as the haggling dragged on and on and became less and less polite.  Finally, my cousin ended the bargaining with something like "Fine, I really didn't want it anyway," and the three ladies walked away.  I was feeling pretty bad for the guy at this point--after all, we were guests in his country, and I thought we had maybe treated him a bit rudely (does anyone else ever worry that people will think they're an "ugly American" when they're traveling internationally?  I'm absolutely paranoid about it).  So the vendor is standing there with a big fake smile on his face to hide his frustration, and as I walk by, trailing behind the three ladies, I smile politely at him to (hopefully) let him know we're not assholes, just hardcore shoppers; and suddenly, his smile went from fake to sneaky.  This guy was a great sneaky smiler: the sneakiness of the smile was accentuated by his awesome 70's-porn-star mustache (standard issue south of the border), and it lit up his whole face with a sort of sneaky joy.  He looked like one of those cartoon foxes that starts slobbering when it sees a fat, juicy chicken.  Clearly, he had just spotted a "rube", and that rube was me.  Those of you who have cheated and peeked at the picture already will know that this was completely unjustified; nevertheless, that was his assessment, and the reason for a slightly different sales pitch than what the ladies had heard from him:

"Psst!  Hey, buddy!  Wanna buy my sister?"

I know, it sounds like something from a bad 70's cop show, but that's actually what he said.  I believe it is the only time in my life that someone has actually said to me, unironically, "Psst!  Hey buddy!"  However, I'm not really in a position to look down my nose, since I responded with an equally ludicrous "I beg your pardon?!"  The whole thing was starting to sound like dialogue from a really cheesy TV movie.

The vendor/pimp was really grinning now: "Come on," he said, nodding toward his tent, "I'll sell you my sister.  She's in the back."

Now, as naive as I may seem in this story, I was not completely brainless.  I had no doubt that, wherever this gentleman's sister (if he had one) might be, it was far away from his seedy little tent and, if I were foolish enough to accompany him into "the back", one of three things would happen: a) best-case scenario--I would wake up later with a sore head and no wallet, no money, and no ID; b) worse-case scenario--I would wake up in a dirty bathtub full of ice with one of my kidneys missing; c) worst-case scenario--I wouldn't wake up.  I was feeling particularly attached to my possessions, my kidneys, and my ability to keep converting oxygen into carbon dioxide that day, so I declined with a polite "No, thank you," (no ugly American here!) tucked my tail between my legs, and hustled my ass out of there, acutely aware of the fact that the would-be pimp was laughing his ass off at me.

Hey, I just realized that two of my three posts are about not having sex!  I'm like the poster boy for abstinence education!  I bet there's a Republican organization somewhere that would want to fund my blog.  I'll research it and get back to you.  Anyway, here's the picture of me from the aforementioned trip to Tucson:

 PS: I just noticed that I seem to be playing a pretty intense game of pocket-pool in this picture!  I assure you, however, that was not the case.  Although it would explain my expression.