Lesson learned. Digging through the recycling bin is dangerous: if you grab the wrong object, you might end up with a giant piece of glass sticking right through your hand.
Table for ¿Uno?
When you’re single, the older you get, the more difficult it is to find someone to take a vacation with you. By now a lot of my friends are married, have kids, or both. The friends who have boyfriends are also more difficult to wrangle since most couples tend to vacation together. And for some reason not all of my friends’ boyfriends are pumped about their girlfriends going to Mexico with me—as if my life is an Afterschool Special and I’m the bully peer pressuring everyone to act badly.
Last spring I really wanted to go to Mexico, so I convinced my friend Jackie, who is engaged, to go with me. Her fiancé didn’t mind; I get along really well with him, plus she and I have been friends for like fifteen years or something. In fact, she’s one of the people I went on vacation with when I was with my ex and she was single. So technically she owed me one.
We settled on Cabo San Lucas, which is totally unoriginal, but why fix what isn’t broken? I found this amazing resort that had a five-night minimum and she was only able to go for four. But the resort looked so perfect that I figured I’d go one night ahead of her and do some writing.
I arrived in Cabo midday and had scheduled a car to pick me up. That sounds fancy, but if you’ve ever taken a taxi in Mexico, you know why I chose to book a town car. Miraculously, my driver was on time and I was quickly on my way to the lovely resort—vacation mode was setting in. Then the driver started talking. What was I doing in Cabo? Where was I from? Was I meeting my husband?
“No, I’m not married,” I replied, kind of annoyed. Does every woman always have to be meeting her husband?
“Oh, so you meet your boyfren then?” he said, persisting in broken English.
“No, I’m meeting a friend.”
“A girl?”
“Yeah, a girl. Can we stop talking? Sorry, I have a headache,” I lied.
The driver ignored my request and continued with his interrogation: “You and you fren lesbian?”
“What? No! ”
“Sorry I jus asking, I mean, you have no boyfren . . .”
“Some people are just . . . single. In America, anyway.” Why was this guy trying to ruin my vacation already? PS: this wasn’t the first time I’d been through this line of questioning in Mexico. “How old are you?” I asked.
“Twenty-two,” he replied.
“And you’re married?”
“Sí, we haf four kid.” He smiled.
“Exactly,” I replied, my point driven home to nobody but myself.
Luckily, just about then we pulled up to the resort. I handed him a twenty and got the fuck out of the car.
“Have fun with you ‘fren,’ ” he yelled to me, using air quotes when he said “fren.”
“Did you see that?” I asked the bellhop who was helping me with my bags. “He used air quotes on me.”
“No hablo inglés,” he replied.
“Good.”
Once I got to my room, I was able to put the arrival incident behind me. I couldn’t be upset; I had my own infinity pool! Our room was facing the ocean, we had a huge shower and Jacuzzi tub, and there were two Coronas and some chips and salsa sitting out by the infinity pool with a little welcome note from the hotel. I drank both Coronas and thought about how romantic this place would be for a couple.
“That’s a depressing thought to have, dummy,” I said out loud to myself. Then I thought about how lucky I was that Jackie and I were such close friends that we could vacation together and not feel pressured to go down on each other.
There you go, Sarah, that is a much funnier thought to have.
It’s impossible for me to relax when a bag is packed, so I unpacked my bag, leaving one entire side of drawers for Jackie, and counted the hangers in the closet to make sure that I left an equal amount for her. I’m a very polite/anal vacation partner. Then I changed into my bikini and headed down to scope out the lounge-chair situation so when Jackie arrived the next day I’d be armed with the knowledge of what time we needed to get to the pool if we wanted umbrellas. It’s called being a fucking professional.
On my walk to the pool, I saw a pelican on the beach with a wave cresting in the background, so I snapped a picture. I admired my photography skills, then texted the picture to Jackie and wrote: “So pretty here!”
“Seriously? You send me a picture of a dirty fucking bird? I wanna see the infinity pool!” she responded.
“I thought it was pretty!” I wrote back. “And since I’m in Mexico that text cost me fifty cents so maybe be a little nicer.”
“I’ll give you fifty cents when I get there.”
Jackie is also a polite vacation partner. I ran back up to the room, took a picture of the infinity pool, texted it to her, and then went downstairs for a poolside cocktail.
The pool at the hotel was everything I had dreamed it would be: plenty of comfy chairs, a handful of waiters, and very few other people. It’s not that I need complete solitude while sunbathing—if I did, I’d have relaxed by our private infinity pool and ordered room service. But lots of people just hold up the drink service, plus nobody is fooling me when they sit in the pool for hours drinking without ever getting out to pee. I know what you’re doing in there and I don’t like it.
I spoke to one of the waiters and got the lowdown on what time Jackie and I should arrive the next day to ensure we had the best seats in the house, then ordered myself a margarita, grabbed a chair, and caught up on the latest Us Weekly. I was only there for a few minutes before someone came by to check on me. Nice service, I thought.
“You need to order drink for you husband?” the waiter asked.
“It’s just me today,” I sighed.
“Jus you?”
“Yeah, jus me!” I smiled and held the magazine up as close to my face as possible.
“Oh-kay,” he replied.
Did he just say “okay” with a super-sad tone in his voice? I shrugged it off, ordered another margarita, and headed back to my room. The sun was starting to go down so I figured I’d get that writing in before Jackie arrived and all hell broke loose.
I had three or four more margaritas while I wrote in the hotel room. I wrote while lying on the bed, I wrote on the balcony, I even started to write while sitting in the infinity pool until I realized what a shitty idea that was now that I was tipsy. A couple hours later, after I got a pretty decent amount of work done and noticed I was making more typos than usual, I decided it was time for a meal that wasn’t liquid. I put on a cute sundress and headed down to the hotel restaurant. (Don’t worry; I leave the resort at some point in this story. But half-drunk and alone didn’t seem like the safest option—I was still in Mexico, you guys.)
I approached the hostess station and asked for a table for dinner.
“For how many?” she asked me politely.
“Just one!” I said, probably louder than I needed to.
“Follow me!”
Finally! Someone isn’t giving me the third degree about dining alone, and of course it’s a woman! Men are so stupid.
She sat me at a nice table with a lovely view of the ocean and said my waiter would be right over. I felt so relaxed; the ocean always makes me feel that way. And there was a really light breeze and a gorgeous sunset. This is perfect.
A busboy approached the table and looked at me.
“Hola! ” I greeted him.
“Hola! Tú hablas español? ”
“Un poquito,” I replied.
Then he rattled off something I couldn’t keep up with and I interrupted him: “Muy poquito,” I said apologetically. But people in Cabo are very accommodating to travelers from the United States. Almost everyone there speaks English, at least at the resorts, so when I
am there I can continue to be a lazy visiting American who pays for stuff in US dollars.
“No problema,” he laughed. “You have someone joining you?”
Jesus Christ.
“Nope, just me!” I said for the one hundredth time.
“Jus you?”
“Jus me!” What is this, fucking Groundhog Day?
The busboy looked at me with what I am positive was pity while he began to clear the other place setting at the table. And he was making a pretty big scene about it, clanging glasses and bread plates together like it was his job—which I guess technically it was, but still.
I took a deep breath and looked back out at the ocean. The waiter approached and asked me what I wanted to drink.
“Margarita, rocks, no salt,” I replied.
“Okay. You have someone joining you?” he asked.
What. The. Fuck.
“No, I don’t have anyone joining me,” I snapped. I was losing my patience. “See how there is only one place setting here? The busboy took the other one away because I am dining alone. So . . . one margarita, quickly, por favor.”
The waiter nodded and walked away, looking slightly confused.
Another waiter then approached my table, holding a basket of bread.
“You need more plate for bread?” he asked.
“No, one is fine,” I replied curtly.
“Nobody else es coming?”
“What?”
“No fren is coming?” he asked.
“What? Yes, a friend is coming. She’s just not here yet. Can I please have that bread?” It was as if he was holding it hostage.
The waiter stared at me blankly.
“I have a friend coming tomorrow. She missed her plane today because she was in a terrible car accident. The other person died and everything. But she’ll be here tomorrow, so if it makes you feel better, you can bring another plate then.”
The waiter set the basket of bread down and hurried away without saying a word.
That should take care of that. I smiled to myself proudly.
Finally my margarita arrived, with yet another waiter carrying it.
Jesus, how many fucking people work at this place? I wondered.
“Hola,” the fortieth waiter said as he set my drink down. “You ready to order or you wan to wait for you fren?”
“Seriously?”
“So you wan to wait then for you fren?”
“I don’t have a ‘fren’ coming tonight,” I yelled, my patience now totally gone. “I’m dining alone. My friend will be here tomorrow. I just want to eat.”
“So . . . only uno?” he asked.
“What?” I yelled.
“Only . . . uno?”
“Yeah, only uno. FUCKING UNO. UUUUUUUUU-NO. Uno, Uno, Uno, UNO! FUCK!” I suddenly realized I was now standing.
“Oh-kay,” he said, and ran away without taking my order.
A few seconds later the second waiter returned to take my order. Clearly the third waiter was too afraid to come back. I ordered a steak and made a point of looking at my phone and laughing often, just to make everyone else feel at ease that I did in fact have friends, that those friends were texting me, and that their texts were hilarious.
I finished my meal rather quickly, signed the bill, and darted back to my room with a full margarita in hand. Immediately putting on my bathing suit, I lit some candles, and hopped into the infinity pool.
Ah, peace. Peace and silence. Nobody was asking me why I was alone, but I was and it was glorious. Uno. The moon cast an amazing light over the ocean and relaxation finally started to creep back in. That is, until I thought about how I’d had like ten margaritas by now and could possibly drown. In a hotel room. Alone. UNO. I climbed out of the pool, toweled off, and got into bed. I wasn’t going to go out like that. Plus, dying before Jackie got there would be totally rude.
I spent the next morning inhaling room-service pancakes and soaking up some sun at the beach awaiting Jackie’s arrival. I was halfway through a strawberry margarita when she texted me that she was en route to the hotel. I went back up to order some chips and salsa and two Coronas, wanting Jackie to have the same arrival experience that I had. When I got to the room, I was pleasantly surprised to find the aforementioned items already waiting for us. Apparently this was a daily service. Nice touch, I thought. Then I said a silent thank-you that today they didn’t just leave one Corona—that might have sent me over the edge.
“This place is amazing!” Jackie yelped. As soon as she’d arrived, we jumped into the infinity pool to drink our Coronas and talk about how awesome this resort was.
“I know! Sooooo, did you get grilled by your driver about why you were alone?” I laughed.
“No. Why?” she responded.
“Really? Ugh. My driver asked me like a zillion questions about why I was alone and then when I said you were coming in today he just assumed we were lesbians.”
“You wish,” Jackie laughed.
“Ew. No I don’t. I don’t have any interest in being a lesbian. Vaginas are so weird looking.”
“Maybe yours is, but mine isn’t!” Jackie replied.
“That’s not true, everyone’s is!”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen other ones on the Internet.”
Jackie laughed. “You have to just stop people from asking too many questions. The driver asked me why I was alone and I said I was engaged and meeting friends for a girls’ trip before I get married. He didn’t ask me any more questions.”
“But you haven’t even set the wedding date yet! You lied.”
“Yeah, but I also didn’t flip out on a waiter last night. Sometimes a white lie keeps things running smoothly,” she explained.
“This doesn’t mean I have to walk around with a crown of dicks on my head all weekend, does it?”
“No, if anyone would have to, it would be me. I’m the bachelorette, dumbass.”
“Okay, good.”
We polished off our Coronas, then headed down to the pool. I immediately found the guy I’d talked to the day before and he escorted us to two nice lounge chairs with an umbrella.
“Margarita, rocks, no salt?” he asked me.
“Sí, gracias!”
“I’ll have the same,” Jackie interjected. “I see you’ve already made your presence known at the bar,” she continued as he walked away.
“Always.”
Jackie and I spent the day wandering back and forth between the pool and the ocean, margaritas in tow. The drunker we got, the funnier my story from the previous evening became until we were just drunkenly yelling, “Only UNO?” at each other while I posed for Instagram photos in my bikini.
“No, not that one. You have to take it at an angle from above; that’s what makes you look skinniest,” I scolded her as I went through the last batch of photos she had taken of me. “Go stand on that rock and take another one.”
“Jesus, this is a lot of work. I didn’t know you cared so much about how you look in a stupid photo,” she said in an accusatory tone.
“I’m single, Jackie. It matters how I look in the photos that I post on Instagram. I have a few possible suitors following me.”
As much as I love my friends who are in relationships, sometimes I feel like they forget what it’s like out there. And now with social media? We’re all screwed.
After settling on a good photo, I told Jackie to get in the water so I could take a bikini picture of her to send to her fiancé, Brandon. We basically had a full-on photo shoot by the sea.
“Oh, that one is okay but I look really pale,” Jackie noted as she scrolled through her options. “I can’t send him that.”
Ah, people who are in relationships are human, too! I thought happily.
“Don’t worry, I’ll put a nice filter on it
—boom! You’re tan!”
Jackie smiled proudly and told me to send the photo. “He’s probably missing me right now, don’t you think?”
“Definitely,” I agreed as I texted it to him. “You almost look Brazilian in this. Damn, Instagram is good.”
We went back to our room to get ready to go out. When I was getting dressed, I noticed a few bumps on my stomach. Then I turned around and realized they were on my back and on my legs, too. “Oh my God, bedbugs!” I yelled to Jackie.
She ran over and looked at my bump-ridden body. “Those aren’t bedbug bites. I’ve had bedbugs, remember? I got them last time we were here.”
I did remember. She’d gotten bedbugs when we were in Cabo for our friend Sarah Tilley’s wedding. We were sharing a room and I didn’t get them, which was weird but not something I was going to complain about.
“What else could they be? They’re everywhere!” I yelled, on the verge of tears. I had planned on living in my bikini the next few days . . . this was not good.
“Maybe a heat rash? Or an allergic reaction? I’m not sure. Let’s go down to the gift shop and see if they have some Cortaid or something.”
The woman working at the gift shop was stumped, but she also assured me they were not bedbug bites. “Believe me, I know bedbug bites. I’m Mexican.”
“Well what else could it be?!” I asked.
“Maybe an allergy, yes. Or the heat. This should help clear it right up,” she said as she handed me a Mexican version of Cortaid.
“Do you have the American version of Cortaid? Like . . . Cortaid?” I asked.
“Is fine, trus me. This will work,” she laughed.
We went back to the room and I covered myself in the generic Mexican cream. I put on a dress that seemed to cover all the bumps so that people wouldn’t think I was diseased, and then Jackie and I drank our complimentary Coronas (they just keep bringing them all day!) and headed out for a night on the town. I put on a brave face because I didn’t want to ruin our first night of vacation, but inside my weird rash horrified me. I’m just not a fan of having weird shit on my body—but I guess nobody is.
Has Anyone Seen My Pants? Page 3