Nick called me up last night, and cut right to the chase: He was going to Mexico to get away from everything, and he wanted my sister and I to come along. Anyone who knows Nick isn’t going to be surprised by this – Nick is the master of rash decision making. What better way to is there to get over a significant-other-that-never-was than to do something impulsive that’s guaranteed to end in disaster?!? Oh, Nick. How I love him.

Normally, this is exactly the sort of thing that I would have turned down. Nick has invited me drinking. He’s invited me on road trips to Las Vegas. He’s invited me to death-metal concerts. He’s even invited me to DDR trips at random times of the day that make no sense. As smart as he is sometimes, there are times that I swear that Nick doesn’t know what he’s doing. Really, he’s got to be the stupidest smart person I’ve ever met.

While I’m usually in the business of turning Nick down, this seemed important. Scratch that. This *WAS* important. While Nick and I have fallen out of contact with each other for months at a time before, I’ve always counted on him to be there for me when I needed him the most. There was no way I was going to let him down now. That, and my sister had already agreed to go along, and somebody needed to keep her in check. She is, after all, the second stupidest smart person I’ve ever met, and really, I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to see either Nick or my sister again if I let them wander into Mexico unsupervised.

My parents were out of town, so nobody really raised an eyebrow when I left the house at midnight and picked Nick up a half-hour later. Nobody raised an eyebrow as we zoomed to Mexico at hundred-something-miles an hour. Nobody batted an eyelid as we drove past the checkpoints that separated the two countries shortly before 2:45 AM. The world is apparently a less attentive, more accepting place between the hours of 1:00 and 4:00 AM. That, and border security is a joke. I mean I’d heard about it being lax, but I was startled when we drove past unmanned checkpoints left completely open. If I’d known that it was this easy to get into Mexico, I would have gone there sooner.

We got to our roach-infested hotel shortly before 3:00 AM. I’ve seen roach infested motels before, but really, this was a masterpiece. There were roaches EVERYWHERE – under the covers, in the pillows, behind the shelves, in the dressers, and all over the toaster. It was horrific. Nick however, didn’t seem fazed by this. As I began to rebuke him for his crap taste in hotels, Nick countered back claiming that this room was only going to cost us approximately $3.00 US, and really the condition of the room didn’t matter if we weren’t going to be using it for anything more than storage anyway. Jesus. It’s amazing how much Nick can rationalize and spin things if it means saving ~$6.00 a night on a hotel room. The man is the most unapologetic cheapskate I know. And proud of it too.

Despite the fact that I was exhausted, I was in no mood to sleep. I don’t do well with cockroaches crawling over me. The cockroaches weren’t the only denizens of the room however. There were WASPS! I. HATE. WASPS. This works out well, because wasps hate me too. It’s a damn shame I didn’t really notice them until *AFTER* I’d locked myself in our room’s grimy, overly sorry excuse for a bathroom.

As Nick and Amy headed out to check out a local rave, I decided to freshen up and maybe take a walk around the city (I have no idea what it was called, so don’t ask me. All I know is that its name started with a “K” and ended with a “Z”. Nick will have to give you the details on this one) and check it out before meeting them at the rave about a half-hour later.

This would have worked out well if a bunch of angry wasps hadn’t decided that it would be a fantastic idea to imprison me in the bathroom.

As I turned the faucet on to wash my hands, I heard a loud buzzing behind me. Assuming it was a giant Mexican housefly or something, I casually swatted at it and tried to make out what must’ve been a reflection of my face in an extremely grimy mirror. Giving up on figuring out how I looked, I turned around to see three HUGE wasps buzzing around the door.

For those of you who might have missed this earlier, I. HATE. WASPS. As a kid, they’d never stop chasing me, even if I was minding my own business. They’d fly into my ears, eyes, and just about everywhere else, and really make me miserable for reasons known only to their malicious little brains. To top off, they’re loud, obnoxious, and their stings HURT.

I’m not going to lie here. I panicked. Having nothing on me but my cell phone, I threw it at the wasps, hoping that it’d scare them enough to the point where they’d fly out of the many holes in our bathroom. No dice. This pissed them off to degrees that I’d never thought imaginable. If I thought that the buzzing was loud before, it was a roar now.

As the wasps dove at me, I picked up my cell phone, and bolted out the bathroom in a hurry, taking along only my five essentials (keys, wallet, glasses, cell phone, iPod), and ran into the street, hoping to lose those evil insects. My wasp-related paranoia however, proved to be all but true, as the wasps seemed to have some sort of homing device implanted into my skull, so they seemed to have no trouble tracking me down as I ran screaming down the streets of K?????z.

The chase persisted for about three and a half minutes until a dirty-looking hobo (even by their extremely lax standards) grabbed me by the waist and spat something that smelled like a mixture of beer and rotting raccoons at my determined pursuers. Somehow, that did the trick. As soon as my unexpected hobo ally shot his gross concoction at the wasps, they fled in terror, never to be seen again.

Once he drove the wasps off, the dingy-looking hobo pointed to himself and said, “I…Santos. Money, plis, sir”. Upon thanking him with what little broken Spanish I knew, I introduced myself as Antonio (the name I was given in my high school Spanish class), opened my wallet, and handed him a twenty-dollar bill. Santos stared at me in disbelief for a second before sweeping me off my feet and talking in really fast Spanish that I didn’t understand. I assumed that he was grateful. At least I hoped he was. I was hoping that he didn’t want more, because, um, that was almost all the money I had in my wallet at the time. Ehehe. I’m really bad when it comes to beggars and hoboes in that I want to give them all my money when I see them. Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t carry any cash. Hm.

Upon stuffing the twenty-dollar bill into his rags, Santos grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me down the street, muttering more things in really fast Spanish (punctuated by bit of broken English here and there that only confused me more). He dragged me along for about half a mile before we finally stopped in what looked like a poorly lit alley populated only by hoboes. Suddenly, I had a feeling that the wasps weren’t going to be the worst of my problems tonight.

As Santos spoke a few words in really loud Spanish, the hoboes stopped what they were doing and listened. During the brief silence that followed after Santos finished, the other hoboes stared at me quizzically for a second before rushing me and pawing at me, wondering if there was anything or anyone else that I needed killed. Politely refusing their offers to incite mass rioting and manslaughter on my behalf, I instead offered a much smaller reward to anyone who was willing to safely guide me back to the hotel. The entire group agreed to the proposition, and for ten dollars, I had a contingent of about a half-dozen hoboes escort me back to my roach-infested residence. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel like hobo-royalty at that moment. Heh. ♥

Upon getting back to my hotel, I thanked the hoboes for everything, and told them that I’d be okay from that point on. My hobo escorts however, vehemently refused to leave me, claiming that I wasn’t *insert Spanish term here that I can’t remember* enough to survive on the streets. They instead insisted on serving as my escort for the duration of my stay here, claiming that the $30 I’d given the group that night was enough to justify their protection. Realizing that there was no way I was going to get rid of my entourage, I agreed to let them accompany me to the rave to meet up with Nick and my sister.

When I got there, Nick was gone. My sister was hiding under a table, crying that she didn’t want to be eaten. Upon seeing me, she promptly proceeded to hop out from under the table, and grab at my nose, claiming that it was the only thing large enough to keep her afloat in this sea of sharks and perverts.

…Yeah, she was high all right. I’m not sure what it was exactly, as she wasn’t sweating, or super-hyperactive/laid back, so I assumed that it was something she drank. Her pupils were dilated and she wouldn’t stop twitching, so I decided that I definitely needed to get her out of here until she sobered up.

Given that she wouldn’t let go of my nose, I had to walk back to my hotel backwards. I’m not going to say much about that horrific experience except that there was lots of tripping, scratching, crying, and almost-vomiting. Note to self: Kill Amy when you have the chance. PS – I’m serious.

When we got back to the room, I found the handle covered entirely by one of Nick’s socks. While I didn’t understand what this gesture was supposed to mean, I attempted to open the door anyway. As I reached for the handle however, I shuddered a little. Anyone who has seen one of Nick’s socks can understand why. It’s the stuff nightmares are made of. And, really, that’s all I’m going to say about that.

…Thankfully for me, I didn’t have to touch the sock. My sister slapped my hand away, and informed me that a sock on the door was apparently a universal symbol that a roommate was getting some, and that other roommates needed to stay out. For a moment there, I didn’t know if I wanted to believe her or not. If this was so universal, why hadn’t I heard of it? Still. I didn’t want to walk in on Nick, um….

“AAAAAAAAAAAAH! AH! AH! AH! UNNH! MMM! AHHH! AHHH! AHHHH!”

Exactly.

As I turned around to make alternate plans with my sister, she suddenly burst into tears, and confessed that she wanted sex too, and wasn’t going to let Nick have all the fun. Before I had a chance to react, she let go of my nose and ran off. I couldn’t believe that this was happening. My extremely high, sexually frustrated sister was running around the streets of K?????z, and Nick was getting sexual attention of the female variety. This wasn’t just bad. These, my friends, were signs of the apocalypse.

*facepalm*

Before Amy had a chance to get too far, I ordered my army of hobos to give chase. While there were more of us, and while most of us were decidedly not high, we still had a hard time keeping up with my sister. Whatever she was on gave her enough energy to sustain a dead sprint for close to ten minutes. She collapsed shortly after, but ended up being okay. It was exhaustion more than anything else, I think.

Once we finally caught up with her, we carried her back to the hotel, and found the door wide open. Walking in, we found that we’d been entirely cleaned out. Nick was naked and snoring on the bed, but that’s about all that was left of what we brought with us. I don’t think I’ve ever screamed so loudly in my life.

Being the doofus that he is, Nick slept through that part too.

After repeatedly trying and failing to wake Nick up, I consulted my hoboes about what had just happened, and wondered if they knew anything. The hoboes swore to find out what they could, and ran out of the hotel as I started making preparations to leave.

Twenty minutes later, my eager assistants returned, dejected and empty handed. Thanking them for their assistance anyway, I asked them to put my sister in the front of my car, and throw Nick in the back. After I handed them another $20 for their efforts and assistance, I began the three-hour drive home.

Both my sister and Nick woke up by the time we got back, and really, Nick was the only one who ended up losing anything. My sister and I, both horrified by our room, had decided to use the ‘Blashmobile as a locker. Nick on the other hand, has lost his credit cards, $200 in cash, his cell phone, his wallet, and oh, the clothes he was wearing that night. Sucks to be him, I guess. *smirk*

All in all, it was an…interesting…trip, I guess. That said though, I am NEVER going to Mexico again. Nick and Amy have ruined Mexico for me to the point that I now shudder at the mere mention of the country’s name. I’m not sure about how I’m going to get them back for this, oh, my justice shall be swift and just. They can count on it.