Son of Vacation (part two)

         

The four of us--myself, my wife, her cousin Laura, and Laura's husband--spent the first day of our Cancún vacation enjoying the pool. That's just how it worked out. By the time our plane landed, between checking in and getting rid of the timeshare salesman, there wasn't much time or energy to do much else.

     I thought it was funny that most of the people in bathing suits chose to swim in a pool while there was a perfectly good ocean to frolic in. As for me, my ocean frolicking days are behind me, so I laid on a lounge bed under an umbrella ordering margarita after margarita, because the only thing better than a margarita is another margarita. 

     I tipped the waiter 20 pesos until I realized two things: 1) my free drinks were costing me money, and 2) I had legs. Just so you know, at my age laying down on the lounge chair is easy, getting up is hard, so I earned all the 20 pesos I saved by doing the grunt work myself.

     My wife, who is fond of telling me what to do, complained that I was drinking too much. 

     “You’re going to become an alcoholic,” she warned me.

     “Impossible,” I told her. “An alcoholic NEEDS a drink. I, on the other hand, already have one.”

     I told her it wasn't the alcohol she should be worried about, because the drinks were decent but weak, it was the sugar. I'm not diabetic, but by the end of the day I could have played one on TV. 

     Ironically enough, the one time my wife went to get herself a piña colada, she almost toppled over like a drunk as she was walking back. The man wearing brown Speedos saved her from a nasty fall, and, if you know how rough the texture of the concrete deck surrounding a swimming pool is, you know how vacation-ruining nasty her fall could have been. 

     Of course I made fun of her. 

     I'm her husband. 

     That's my job.

     She took a few sips of her piña colada and the next time I looked over at my beautiful wife she was knocked out. A nice thing about her is she doesn’t snore. If I fell asleep people would think my snoring was an incoming tsunami.

     This is going off the subject a bit, but have you ever wondered why the “t” in tsunami is silent? It’s one of the little quirks of spelling. Like the “k” in knife or “h” in honest. You know what’s silent in marriage?

     The husband.

     Anyway... you know what I noticed? If you sit at the beach under a hot sun all day drinking nothing but margaritas your sweat becomes sticky.

     And sweet.

     (Don’t ask.)

    Also, when you’re sunning yourself on the beach and drinking decent liquor, you don’t get drunk. You achieve a nice buzz that doesn’t go anywhere. The sun has a way of keeping you sober. 

     Since too much booze goes with everything except good decisions, I decided to take a dip in the ocean after all. I wasn’t going to travel over a thousand miles and not swim in the ocean, was I? The waves were small, but there was the occasional bully. Still, I was not discouraged. I waded in only to have one knock me over almost immediately. I lost my balance, my dignity, and my hat. Once down, the waves kept me tumbling, one after the other. I was finally able to stand, but my hat was nowhere to be found. That’s when I came to the conclusion that waves were ol' King Neptune’s way of saying, “Get off my lawn!” 

     Having been defeated by nature, I made my way back to my lounge chair. No sooner was I about to join my wife in dreamland than I had to go to the bathroom. At my age, when you’ve gotta go you’ve gotta go. There’s no playing around. The nearest bathroom was too far away, so I decided to jump in the pool instead.

     Just kidding.

     But it did make me wonder if anyone else was as conscientious as I. 

     We were lucky enough to score a nice spot in the pool area by the bar, but the cabanas on the beach in front of us were all taken. Once people grab a cabana, they don’t give it up. You would think a couple of hours hogging a prime piece of aquatic real estate would be enough, but they stay there the whole day. Out of selfishness, is what I think. For example, there were two old people--older than me, even--occupying one like they were hippies and it was Wall Street. I got up to, um, take a dip in the pool and when I got back they were gone but had left their towels and t-shirts in the cabana so no one else could use it. I never saw them come back. 

     A family of five was using the cabana next to them. The oldest boy was about 13-years-old. He flew under my radar until his mother started changing him from his clothes into swim trunks and I saw he was wearing a diaper. Later, I saw his father give him a bear hug, kissing him on the top of his head. You could tell both parents loved him deeply. That made me grateful for the healthy children I have, headaches that they sometimes are. 

     A young lady splashing around in the pool caught my attention. She was wearing what looked like a scuba-diving outfit with a scarf covering her head. A burkini, if you will. It just goes to show the extent of my ignorance of other cultures, but I didn’t think women of her particular culture were allowed to have fun. Then again, maybe I was thinking about my neighbors, who are Jehovah Witnesses. Which reminds me of a joke:

     You know why the Mafia doesn't like Jehovah Witnesses?  

     They don't like ANY witnesses!

     The man with the lady in the burkini looked like any other man at the pool, wearing trunks and flip flops. I paid no more attention to them until he carried her like a newlywed over a threshold from one end of the swimming pool to the steps leading out of the water. He led her to a nearby chair where she sat down and watched him get back into the water. 

     Could she not swim? 

     Was she not allowed to swim? 

     Was it any of my business? 

     It was an interesting observation for me, but other than that I have no idea what any of it meant. I feel silly even bringing it up.

     Nosy Parker that I am, my attention went back to the cabanas. I began observing a young couple, both good-looking. The guy was sound asleep. The girl, up and around. Walking this way and that. Sometimes laying down on her side and adjusting her legs to get a tan of a way more personal nature. I wondered, “Shouldn’t the two of you be up in your room having sex?” 

     But that’s just me. 

     By the time we were ready to go, so was everyone else. Those cabanas emptied out faster than the babysitter's boyfriend when our car pulls up. Not only were the cabana people selfish, but messy, too. They left their trash and discarded towels everywhere. 

     Being frugal, I told my wife we should take some of those towels back with us as gifts and souvenirs. 

     “Honey,” she sighed, “how ‘bout you drink a cup of coffee and surprise your liver?”