by Mamrie Hart
Combine all your ingredients into a shaker full of ice. Shake like your life depends on it. Strain into a glass full of ice that is already rimmed with your cinna-sugar. While the ingredients might make you raise an eyebrow, after one of these puppies the only thing you’ll be raising is your hand when you say, “Pardon me, bitch, may I have another?”
I love Mexico. Love, love, lurve it. I love the food. I love the drinks—Corona and tequila are 87 percent of my bloodstream. (The other 13 percent is a combination of blood, sweat, and pizza-flavored Combos.) But it’s not just the partying aspects of Mexico that I love. Sure, if there is a piñata at a party, you’d better grab your two-year-old and get the fuck out of the way because I am going to temporarily lose my mind, and yes, I have been known to throw on a pink taffeta dress and sneak into a quinceañera at the park. But I also highly enjoy the culture.
The first time I ever went to Mexico was in fourth grade. My mom took me, my brother and sister, and my cousin Josh to Cancún. Twenty-four hours and a bad fruit salad later, the bro, sis, and cuz all had a case of what they call Montezuma’s revenge. I, however, was free to have a fleeting moment of being an only child. We went to Mayan ruins, we snorkeled, my mom ushered me quickly past Señor Frog’s. This was the jumping-off point for my love of all things Mexican.
One thing I’m super obsessed with is Mexican wrestling.* The wrestlers, or luchadores, wear crazy masks when they fight. To Americanize it for you, it’s Jack Black’s potbellied alter ego in the movie Nacho Libre. These guys create over-the-top characters who do insane, high-flying moves. They are super famous in Mexico, all while never revealing their true identities. As someone who wants everyone on earth to know my rubber face, I am fascinated by this anonymity. I even started my own lucha libre mask collection and break them out at any excuse. Is it cold outside? Better wear a lucha mask. Going on a first date and want to make sure the guy likes me for my personality and not just my looks? It’s mask time. It works in most scenarios.
There’s one time in my masked memories that I was especially happy to not show my face. It was my friend’s thirtieth birthday party, which happened to fall on Halloween. She is British and super posh—like, as a child she probably referred to Victoria Beckham of the Spice Girls as the poor-level posh. Her even more posh parents were coming in from England to celebrate their daughter’s milestone. Since her birthday was on Halloween, I asked if people would be dressing up. “Oh, totally, totally,” she said. “It will be a dress-up party.”
Cut to me decked out in full lucha libre wear. Hologram tights, leopard leotard. I even tied a shower curtain around my neck as a cape. But when I high-kicked into her Brooklyn loft, I saw where the gap between British and American slang came into play. People dressed up, all right. Her dad was practically in a tux. And I was definitely the only one dressed up in Halloween gear.
This pic was taken after about the fifth Brit asked me what superhero I was.
But the Mexican tradition I love even more than lucha libre is Día de los Muertos. Or for you gringos, Day of the Dead.
If you aren’t familiar with this holiday, let me quickly break it down for you. Day of the Dead is a three-day celebration throughout Mexico when family and friends honor the deceased with altars, parades, and flowers. You probably have seen Day of the Dead stuff before, be it intricate skeleton face paint on a hipster, or a detailed tattoo of a skull wearing a flower crown (on a hipster’s calf). I love how it celebrates the dead and makes something like a skeleton seem not scary. Because I won’t pussyfoot around it—I am a total pussy.*
I have tons of Day of the Dead figurines and paraphernalia, but I’d never actually been to Mexico to see it in person until 2008. Maegan and I decided to take the plunge. We scoured the Internet for the cheapest Mexico deal and finally found one for six hundred dollars. It included airfare, transportation to and from the airport, and four nights at an all-inclusive resort. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Six hundred bucks?! Let me guess, they are going to get down there and be sold into white slavery. Not true! Turns out that sometimes when you travel abroad, the only thing you need to worry about is the other Americans.
After a fuck-ton of drinks on the plane, we arrived in Cozumel. Maegan was scared of flying, and y’all know about my fears, so we handled it as we do: by taking down enough vodka to pickle a miniature pony. By the time we touched down in Cozumel, our tray tables were a wasteland of airplane bottles. It looked like leprechaun spring break.
The thirty-minute car ride from the airport to the resort set the perfect tone for the trip. We were crammed into a minivan cab with three sixtysomething retiree couples who passed around a bottle of Drambuie, and everyone (yours truly included) took pulls straight from the bottle. At the time, I figured it was all good because these were seniors. They weren’t exactly slutting around and spreading the herp. This, of course, was before knowing that because of medical advancements like Viagra, the STD rates in senior communities are astronomical.
(Also, if you have never drunk Drambuie before, I don’t recommend it. Drambuie is one of those liquors that taste so bad, you think they must be good for you. Like, it tastes so bad that there is no way it doesn’t also clean your blood or replenish your bone marrow to make the terrible medicinal taste worth it.)
When we got to the resort, we were surprised to see it was gorgeous. Half of it was under construction (hence the extremely cheap rate), and after some boozy pleas, the concierge upgraded us to a nicer room—one with a waterslide from your patio down to the pool, landing you at the swim-up bar. It was like a McDonald’s playground for drunks.
The next few days were a total veg fest. Mornings started with us taking our slide down to the pool bar for coffee and Baileys. Afternoons were spent snorkeling and sunbathing. Nights consisted of long dinners and drinks at the resort’s bar. And we definitely took advantage of that free room service, by having orders of french fries and beer delivered to our room every night. An American nightcap!
Even though we were having a great time, it was pretty isolating. We would see older couples around, but no one really interacted with each other. We would get showered and go to the resort’s bar at night, but it was just us sitting there by ourselves. Just two gals drinking alone as the four men who worked it stood and watched. There was one bartender in particular who would get shy and giggle every time Maegan spoke to him. This was the level of action we were getting—one dude kind of giggling toward us.
But that all changed on the third night. We were sitting on our patio, betting on who would spill the least while going down the slide holding a plate of fries (turns out we tied, each spilling the entire plate), when we heard it. The sounds of youth! We looked over to the bar and saw not one, but two couples drinking and laughing. We quickly got on our socializing game faces and made our way over.
And we were pleasantly surprised. They were great! The two guys were best friends, the two gals were best friends, and every year they would take a double-date vacay. They seemed a little Republican for my normal taste, with the guys sporting buzz cuts and boat shoes. But we weren’t in America, so I left politics at the door and enjoyed the company.
The next few hours we drank our faces off, played pool, and had some laughs. The bar started closing up around ten p.m., but as the resident young and attractive people at this resort, we wanted the party to keep going. So we invited our new friends up to our room to order (more) french fries and twelve draft Dos Equis.
It didn’t take more than a few more brews for us all to agree we should go down the waterslide. Our new friends headed out before us as Maegan and I seized the moment of solitude to dominate those fries. As we stepped out onto the patio, we looked over to see our new friends coupled up. One pair was making out against the pool wall. I looked for the other two, and they were on the slide. Well, the guy was lying on the slide, being straddled by the one who was definitely not his wife but who definitely was t
opless.
That’s when it hit me: HOLY FUCK. THEY’RE SWINGERS.
For some reason, I always imagined swingers to be overweight and in their fifties and sixties. They’d all be hanging out in someone’s gross living room, paired up and going at it on shag carpeting, and saying things like:
Hey, Gerald, once you’re done going down on my wife, I’ve got to show you my new nine iron.
Linda, how many times do I have to tell you to put your pants on if you are going to taste the fondue? Nobody wants your pubes in the Gouda.
OR:
Ruth, be a dear and turn the TV to NCIS while you jerk off Terrance.
But these were the younger generation, the up-and-comers. We stared at them in disbelief for what felt like an eternity, and then the topless wife spoke up. “We were so excited to see y’all at the bar tonight. John kept going on and on about that hot lesbian couple he’d seen around.”
Hot lesbian couple? Did they think we were a hot lesbian couple? I got why they would think that we were hot. I had seen a reflective surface, after all—but lesbian? The events of the past few days montaged through my mind. Maegan and me cheersing our champagne as a waiter took a picture. Constantly ordering room service, like we couldn’t be bothered to put our clothes on. We swam with dolphins, for Chrissakes. This was the most romantic vacation I’d ever been on!
Before I could laugh and clear things up, Maegan took charge. “We came on this trip because we’ve been having some relationship issues lately.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Titties McGee said as someone else’s husband played with her belly ring.
“Yeah,” Maegan continued as I looked like a deer in headlights. “Actually, do you mind if the two of us have a word in private?” Maegan grabbed my hand and we retreated back to our room.
As soon as she closed the sliding glass doors, we screamed with no volume. The rest of the night we sat quietly, trying to listen to what was happening outside while inhaling french fries. Occasionally we would yell out a line or two as if we were arguing. “No, it’s your turn to refill the humidifier!” or “I’m tired of always wearing the strap-on!”
Luckily, they were so distracted playing Pick a Husband that they forgot all about us. After taking down the twelve room service beers, we entered a carb coma and both passed out.
The next day came with a massive hangover, the kind where your body feels like it is vibrating. You crave coffee but you’re nervous that the caffeine will push you over the edge and you’ll end up crying on the bathroom floor. We started to make our way to the patio to slide down for some hair of the dog but stopped when we realized we didn’t know what kind of HBO Real Sex stuff had happened on our precious, precious slide the night before. So our last full day in Mexico was instead spent inside, watching a Sex and the City marathon in Spanish. The bad news was I felt like a piece of shit for wasting my last day of vacation, but the good news is I can now say Kegels in Spanish.
Once the sun started to set, we knew we needed to suck it up and shower. After all, this was the first day of Day of the Dead and we just had to experience it. All week, we had seen signs that there was going to be a special show in the resort’s theater that night. Bartenders had told us it wasn’t to be missed and it was their favorite show all year.
We managed to clean ourselves up, then headed over to the Italian restaurant. I, of course, ordered two entrées for myself and a big ol’ glass of wine to keep the hangover at bay. Once the food arrived and I was tagging out my eggplant parm for my lasagna, I looked up to see that Maegan hadn’t eaten a bite.
“What’s wrong? Do you not like your ravioli? I’d be happy to order a couple pizzas and help you eat those if you like.”
She shook her head and stood up. “I’m having a full-on panic attack. I gotta get the fuck out of here.”
“Okay, do you want me to have them wrap up your food for later? Maybe we should get an order of puttanesca too . . . just in case.”
“I’m not even hungry. I really gotta leave now. I’ll meet you outside.” She peaced the fuck out as I flagged down the waiter to see if we could just get our meals to go. Before I could stop him, he set down the garlickiest garlic bread I’d ever seen. Fuck. I couldn’t just leave the food. That would be super rude. Especially since at all-inclusives you don’t pay for anything. I would’ve looked like some asshole who just orders a bunch of shit and doesn’t eat it because I can.
To keep my conscience clear, I dove right in. I also didn’t want Maegan to be freaking out solo, so I started shoveling it all in fast. There I was, sitting alone with enough food for several people. It was almost as sad as when you order delivery for yourself and they bring you four sets of silverware, just assuming that amount of food must be for an entire family. So then you call out to your fake family as you are tipping the delivery guy like, “Madison, I said you can practice cello later. Come eat with Mommy and Daddy.” Because if that delivery guy thinks I ordered food for four, you better believe it’s four swanky, cello-playing people.
By the time I was halfway through Maegan’s ravioli, I looked up and saw the swingers at a table, staring at me with looks of pity. I shrugged my shoulders and pointed outside. “She wasn’t feeling well.”
They nodded like they were witnessing a lovers’ quarrel, a romantic retreat gone wrong. Luckily, they had totally healthy, normal marriages where they fucked each other’s best friends. I wanted to yell, “You have no room to judge the state of my fake lesbian relationship!” but I refrained.
After quickly finishing the basket of bread (I wasn’t raised to waste), I asked for two shots of tequila to go and booked it straight toward our room. Walking back, I heard, “Maaaaamrie,” coming from a couch in the open-air lobby. I looked around and saw no one. I’d almost convinced myself that it was someone’s dead Mexican ancestor coming to talk to me, when I spotted Maegan’s shoes. Like the witch’s in The Wizard of Oz, her always-adorable footwear was peeking out from underneath the couch pillows. I pulled one off her face and handed her the shot. I didn’t even need to speak. The rules of staving off anxiety between us were known. Like Haley Joel Osment, I was paying that shit forward.
We sat on the couch until her anxiety went from “I’m going to scream my head off and take a dump on the floor” to “This place is weird, right?” Mind you, I was still massively hungover and having to make a conscious effort to string words together to form sentences, but I had to be strong for her.
“Do you want to go back to the room, order beers, and stay away from all the weirdos?” I asked, knowing our night of finally seeing some Mexican culture was going to be a bust.
But she impressed me with her resolve.
“No. We are going to the show, goddammit.”
I’ve said before how when you are having a panic attack everything feels just a little off. Like nothing makes sense. Well, I wasn’t even having one and as soon as I walked into this show, I had those symptoms. I can say without a doubt that we were about to witness the weirdest Halloween show of all time.
That’s right, not a Day of the Dead show like we had traveled from New York to see. Nope. This resort didn’t want its snowbirds to feel homesick for All Hallows’ Eve, so it brought the American culture to us. We approached the theater, and all the hotel staff were dressed as very bootleg vampires.
“Watch out!” I warned them. “My purse is full of garlic bread!” No response. This was not my target demo. We entered the theater and it was decked out in fake graves, spiderwebs, fake bats. It looked like someone had given a blank check to a kid at Party City. I loved it.
We went to the bar to grab a couple of beers before finding a seat, but the bartender insisted on having us try their signature “scary” cocktail. I kid you not, it was oatmeal with red food coloring and vodka in it, or “Blood Drink,” as they called it. The only thing scary about it was that it felt like you were drinking liq
uid cement that at any point was going to harden in your throat. I asked if I could get a spoon for my drink, and the bartender was not amused. Or maybe he was. It’s really hard to tell when someone’s face is painted like a skeleton.
We took our seats while chewing our drinks. As the lights came down, a random man’s hand tapped my shoulder. I jumped in my seat to find the swinging quartet behind us.
“Hey, hot lesbians. If you get scared during this show and need to hold each other, I won’t mind.” We forced a laugh through our porridge-tinis and turned back around.
We inched our chairs forward a little and kept spooning down the oatmeal vodka as a guy in a Grim Reaper robe and Jason mask swung a fake sickle at us. I leaned into Maegan.
What followed was quite possibly the greatest thirty-minute show I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve seen that Full House episode with two Michelles. If you have never watched a four-foot-ten-inch Mexican man in drag lip-syncing to “Sweet Transvestite,” or seen a dude (in whiteface) dressed as Freddie Mercury pretending to play “Bohemian Rhapsody” on the piano while four guys stand behind him with flashlights and rocker wigs acting out the actual music video, you have not lived.
Everything was based on Halloween but just a little off, kind of like dollar-store snacks. You’ll go to the store craving Cheeze-Its, but settle for Chee Zits. It’s close but not quite there. For example, Halloween is all about skeletons. Fact. But when they brought out ten people dressed as glow-in-the-dark skeletons, they danced to Huey Lewis’s “Back in Time,” from the Back to the Future soundtrack. It didn’t make sense. Halfway through, Maegan and I had lost it. The hangover mixed with the chunky cocktail on top of sitting in front of people who thought we were a couple sent us over the edge, and we were crying from laughing so hard. Here we had come all the way to Mexico and the closest we were getting to Day of the Dead was a knockoff Beetlejuice dancing to “Simply Irresistible.”