Adventures in Pool Crashing in Puerto Rico

He rushed past us telling the security guard, “I know what happened, where’s the guy?” His accent was all Jersey, his barreled chest thrust out and at the ends of his tattooed arms were clinched fists. I look to my friend and say, “I think there’s been a fight.” Just then, we see a distressed woman sobbing and clutching a beach towel making her way around the sundeck of the Marriott’s pool. This is both a good and a bad thing. It’s good because we are contemplating crashing the hotel’s pool and this allows us the opportunity to see the hotel’s security at work. I know how callous this sounds, but we have been warned about the deadly rip current here and the frequent drownings of locals and tourists. To believe that I, an extremely poor swimmer, will risk my life for a little aquatic relief from the merciless sun is almost inconceivable. Unless I’m driven mad by the heat nothing higher than my ankle is getting wet. This distresses me to no end to be so close and yet so far from a cool dip, swim up bar and handsome cabana boys while I tan.

The plan was just to ask the hotel but that plan involves risk; the risk of being told no. I have learned that it is often preferable to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Somehow I feel that that Puerto Rico’s prisons are far too overcrowded to handle an influx of pool crashing weak swimmers. I think we are safe to slip in and use the facilities. Besides being curious about what made Jersey man fighting mad, throwing ourselves into the action offers valuable face time with the staff. If they recognize us as concerned guests we are less likely to be asked to show our room key or some other such nonsense. Familiarity beats shopping for the correct color beach towel distributed poolside to paying guests and it’s cost effective. Anyway the entire hubbub was about a peeping tom.

It appears that Mrs. New Jersey was in the ladies when there came a tapping on her stall door. She answered that the stall was occupied and the presumed knocker went to the stall next door and entered. Mrs. New Jersey was surprised or should I say horrified a moment later seeing the face of an Asian gentleman staring up at her from adjoining stall and watching her go potty. She proceeded to scream, “You sick bastard!” to the top of her lungs and began struggling with her clothing. Once semi attired she gave chase but sadly lost peeping Chan. She then alerted her spouse and began to sob with great vigor. When I hugged her and said, “Oh you poor thing” the blue mascara was running down her freckled nose. Hotel management, security and all sorts’ folks came forward to offer comfort and support. Mr. Jersey was yelling that they were checking out and the manager was trying to reason with him, to which he offered these words, “Tell me what you’re going to do for me, your very best, because and he looked at me when he said this, cause where I’m from we call that kinda guy a sexual predator.” You tell him Jersey because I’m sure they call perverts something totally different in Puerto Rico. The Mrs. began to cry as she recalled, “Our daughter used that bathroom three times today. I don’t want some sick bastard looking at my daughter.” Indeed. I asked the staff and security all kinds of questions like, what bathroom was it and do you think he was a guest (aghast) here at the hotel. Oh my goodness, are we safe here? After a little while we left the pool area and hit the casino for a few minutes. I think we are home free for pool time for the rest of our stay.

Capturing the Muse in Puerto Rico

So, I’m in Puerto Rico, it’s 5:03 and I’m having a drink. I’m winding down from an eventful day of sight seeing and acquainting myself with my new surroundings. I’m finding it difficult to be writing about growing up in the rural South when I’m about a block away from the ocean and less than that from restaurants and bars in bustling San Juan. The sun is completely set by 7 pm which is very different from the 9 pm setting of Georgia. Outside my window the city comes to life as the dark closes in and the jack hammers lay idle. All day I see and hear cars, buses, trucks and motorcycles. The sounds of hydraulic brakes hiss and squeal from four floors below and remind me of the bus I took into Old San Juan this morning. I love the sounds of this place, the buzz of a city and hum of the ocean. They shouldn’t mix but if you have to live in the urban jungle it’s lovely to have Mother Ocean at your back door, which for the next few weeks I do. Either I’m not very disciplined or the muse has other plans for my stay here. I’m not going to fight her lead it’s bad ju ju for one’s writing to do so, at least that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
One of my roomies on this trip ordered some chouro sausage for dinner last night. She offered me a sample and the taste provoked a vivid memory of my childhood. It tasted just like the sausage I grew up with which was served at breakfast or dinner in South Carolina. I remember thinking this would be great with some oatmeal and some maple syrup. Immediately, I was transported to my grandmother’s kitchen table. My grand father always sat at the head of the table, my brother to his left, me to his right. Grand mother sat at the opposite end with my mother at her side. The smell of rich warm coffee and hot sizzling sausages flood my memory for a moment and then bam I’m back in Puerto Rico. I think, “That’s where the cellulite came from.” I’m going to look like a strained whale floundering on the beach tomorrow. I imagine Puerto Rican men pouring water over me and then trying to drag my fat sausage ass back into the sea. Strange trip the muse has planned, strange, strange trip.

Pink Heart Shaped Pillow

I was carrying the laundry upstairs when I turned the corner into the bedroom and saw him jacking off on my pink heart-shaped pillow. Shocked, I immediately back out of the room. Then I thought, this is my house, and that’s my pillow, and if he doesn’t have any shame why should I. I waked back in the room and he looked up at me, but continued about his business. I put down the laundry and yelled downstairs to Bret,
“Hey, you need to come up here.”
“Why?”
“Because your son is jacking off on my pink heart-shaped pillow.”
“Is he still doing it?”
“Hell yeah he’s still doing it, get up here.”
Bret came upstairs and we both stood there and watched for a moment. Mojo had a paw on each side of the rounded heart, kneading away while he rubbed his genitals against the pointy end.
“Damn, that is what he’s doin.”
“I told you”
“Mojo kitty did they miss something when they cut off your nunnies.”
I began to laugh at this point and apparently, my laughter triggered a shame response from Mojo. He stopped, and got a very sad look on his face, which prompted a stern admonishment from my spouse.
“Don’t laugh at him. Remember Bill got all jissy there for a while.
(Bill is our other male cat). Look you hurt his feelings.” He rushed to the bed and began to comfort Mojo. “It’s okay, little boy, Mamma didn’t mean to laugh at you, it’s perfectly natural. You can do that whenever you want.”
I approached the bed and said,
“That’s easy for you to say, here’s not doing it on your pillow.”
“Well, I don’t think he hurt anything. Here smell it,” as he shoved the pillow in my face. I immediately noticed the wet spot and pushed the thing away.
“OH! DAMIT”
“What?”
“There’s a wet spot on it.”
“Ooooh, that sucks.”
“Oh really, ya think” I paused for a moment and asked, “Why do think he’s doing that?”
“I don’t know. It’s really soft and it smells like mamma.”
“Yeah, that’s what creepy about it.”
For me this incident put a whole new perspective on how that little kitty jumps in my lap and forces kisses on me and how he cries and insists on uncovering my head on weekend mornings and forces kisses on me. I equate this to a woman walking in on her teenage age son fondling her underwear. It’s just weird. I really like that pillow myself, although I have never felt the urge to express my feelings toward it sexually. It is really soft. The problem is Mojo won’t stop loving it. When I leave the house, I have taken to hiding it under the covers. I thought making it difficult to reach would discourage the little guy from pleasuring himself on it. Unfortunately, every time I turn around he’s at it again. I mean you can only wash something so much.
The other day I was on my way to school. I got into the car and then realized that I had left something in the house. I returned inside, climbed the stairs, and went back into the bedroom to retrieve whatever it was. Just a few moments earlier, all three cats were asleep on the bed, but not so upon my returning. Bill was still asleep on the edge of the bed, however Mojo was once again engaged in his new favorite pastime, and Pudding , my female kitty, was having a field day playing in my cosmetics. I swear it’s like having teenagers. I left feeling as if I had return a little later Bill would have been awake and in the process of raiding the liquor cabinet or his Daddy’s stash.

Macy’s, Sears, Walmart, Kmart, Home Depot, Office Depot and other machines of torture and humiliation

I’m graduating from college next week and like most people in my position I’m wondering, will I have to go back into retail now? Personally, I’d rather eat a bullet. Seriously I’m having weird nightmares about being stuck in department stores and malls. In these dreams whenever I step onto an escalator the stairs go flat and form a straight steep incline to the top and worse the hand rail, which I’m holding onto for dear life, runs slower than the stairs. The result is that I’m going up at a high rate of speed feet first. Of course, this is a series of escalators rising several stories and fall would be fatal. I had this one dream where I’m sitting at my computer writing and this man and woman (manager/supervisors) enter my office and tell me rather sternly to, “Get back out on the floor!” I go out to a cash register where I am confronted by a surly co worker and even surlier customers. Then this huge metal display falls because of an earthquake or something. In the dream, I think great I can use this natural disaster to escape. Unfortunately, as I approach the door all the glass (and there is a lot of glass) begins to shatter and rain down on me. I’m approached and halted by the supervisors/managers. I begin to speak, but my mouth s full of broken glass. I try to make sounds, but broken glass just keeps falling out. It’s horrible!

Now you might be wondering how and why a grown woman is so terrified of department stores. Well, I’ll tell you. I know from personal experience in retail sales and management that the systems on which it is designed and based methodically and purposefully break human beings down psychologically. .I don’t know the point of origin (I’m certain it is a closely guarded secret, like the reality of flying saucers) but I believe the current model was developed in Nazi Germany. Oh sure, there have been revisions to the evil plan and they (the powers) have learned to disguise things better, but the basic structure remains. Victims still enter retail believing that they are being given legitimate work. What they actually sign up for is years of mental and physical torture. For example, company policy is code for one particularly heinous form of torture. Victims are forced to repeat some “policy” that they know is not only stupid, but is designed to piss off the other victims (known as customers). It’s ingenious how they (the powers) manage to get the victims to fight among themselves and blame each other for their lot in life. I am amazed at how well this works and continues to work decade after decade. For those who haven’t figured this out here’s how it works.
The victims (buying public) are convinced through splashy ad campaigns that they must have some product. These products rarely live up to the hype as they are not anything one actually needs. They are something the victim is made to want. The product fills a hole in the self, a hole the victim wasn’t even aware existed until a splashy ad campaign made them aware of their short comings. So the victim goes off the site of torture seeking the product. They get distracted by a bunch of other products that they weren’t aware that they needed and then they sell their souls in order to purchase these illusions. But wait here’s where things start to get good. Now the other victim must recite policy to them. Policy says you don’t have the right currency, or policy says you didn’t pay your bill so you can’t have the shiny things you so desperately need. Now the pain begins to escalate on both sides, the arguing, insults and accusations fly and one victim screams out in agony, “I WANT TO SEE A MANAGER.” Oh now they’ve done it and a third victim arrives. I used to think the manager had it easy, until I became one. You see that too is illusion, the illusion of power. The manager only appears to have some authority, but they are just another part of the torture process. There are only certain things managers can say yes to or fix and when they do there is always someone other victim further up the chain who will beat them with the NUMBERS and PERCENTAGES and POLICY. It’s the little things that eat away at the manager’s sense of self. For one thing they get paid less per hour that the other victims. It’s true. They go in thinking they will have power and more money, but in retail there is always a catch. In this case, the catch is called being salaried, which means the powers can work managers twenty fours hours a day seven days a week and they can’t do shit about it. To add insult to injury the other victims are aware of this fact and (given they already hate managers) this gives them all the ammo they need to belittle them and talk smack about them behind their back.
I think you can see where I’m headed with this by now. Retail is a vicious cycle that feeds on its victims in ways they are usually conditioned not to notice. The victims suffer from a generalized unhappiness and an over whelming sense of hopelessness. The victims are in so deep they don’t see a way out. The cruelest blow of all is that victims are habituated to have one response to their misery. GO OUT AND BUY SOMETHING! And so it begins again.
If they really want to extract information from terrorist I say make them work the gift wrap counter at Macy’s during Christmas. I not only guarantee that they’ll crack, but I’m sure they’ll no longer believe in any god and their brains will be so pliable that they’ll ask to be rehired next Christmas. I’ve seen it happen to even the most devote and principled among us. So, next time you out at the mall think about it.