Warm Tropical Breezes Inside a Mexican Taxi Cab

This is a story about air-conditioning, or, more broadly, an episode from one day of our recent trip to Mexico that highlights some of the cultural differences that exist between our two nations. It all started with a Martin Lawrence movie. A really bad one (are there any other kind?). My wife, Jen, my 17-month-old son, Leo, and I were on a Primera Plus “first class” bus that had originated in Guanajuato and was heading to San Miguel de Allende. “First Class” in this context meant semi-functional air conditioning, no livestock visible in the cabin, brightly upholstered seats largely free of vomit stains, a free boxed lunch complete with a Frankenstein like mystery meat sandwich on months old knock-off wonder bread, and “entertainment.” By “entertainment” I mean six TV screens placed strategically around the bus so that anyone attempting to read, sleep, think, converse, or simply hide from the onslaught of programming would surely give up in frustration.

The ear-splitting volume of the film on offer was the first thing I noticed when we boarded the bus. The movie- it may have been “Rebound” but I can’t be sure- was already in progress, and yet, despite all the noise, most of the handful of passengers seemed to be either sleeping or trying to sleep. Most American movies are dubbed into Spanish for the Mexican market, and this one was no different. Jen and I were hoping that Leo would be able to nap on the 75 minute ride to San Miguel- we were planning just a day trip and hoped a nap would be just the thing to get him through the experience. I saw our bus driver chatting away with another driver amicably outside- despite the fact that it was already ten minutes past our scheduled departure time- and asked him in broken Spanish if we could lower the volume of the film. He did not say “si” or “no”, he simply looked at me dismissively.

I can’t be sure that the driver actually increased the volume of the film, once he finally deigned to board and commence our trip, but it sure seemed that way as I slumped down in my seat and tried to hide from Martin Lawrence and company. Unable to read, sleep, or hear much of what my wife was saying, I succumbed and watched a bit of the film. My Spanish is quite basic, but I got the gist- Martin was the coach of some kind of youth sports team that, despite low expectations, had overcome obstacles and led his team to an improbable victory over a better opponent. When the closing credits came on, I nearly cried tears of joy- not because I was so happy for Martin’s team, but because I thought that there wouldn’t be enough time left in the journey for the driver to inflict another film on us.

We enjoyed perhaps 60 seconds of blissful silence- by this time my son had fallen asleep but I was too agitated to do anything more than squirm in my seat- before our reverie came to a crashing halt as the sadistic driver treated us to Mexican cartoons at a volume that even the hard of hearing would object to. I appealed to a Mexican businessman who was sitting across from us. “Yes, its too loud,” he conceded, “but the driver is in control- there is nothing we can do!” I had been hoping he’d take the issue up with the driver, but his fatalistic approach to the problem reminded me of the difference between the American approach to nuisances and the approach you encounter in many other countries around the world, Mexico included. Americans think that they can at least endeavor to resolve any problem- be it a minor discomfort or a major irritant, but in many other parts of the world, the attitude is something akin to- let’s just grin and bear it, life is tough and we have no expectation of comfort.

I’ve always disliked bus travel, as I find it confining and rarely comfortable- but being forced to listen to loud Spanish language cartoons elevated my distaste for bus travel to new heights. I resolved to find a different way- any way- to return to Guanajuato later that afternoon.

Our knight in shining armor arrived in the form of a gleaming new VW taxi that took us from the bus station into the center of San Miguel de Allende. By this point in our Mexican adventure, we had traveled in at least a dozen Mexican taxi’s in Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara and Guanajuato, and had only been in a cab with A/C on one occasion. Nearly all the cabs we’d been in were the Mexican equivalent of a mid to late 80’s Nissan Sentra, but this was something akin to a brand new VW Jetta. The English-speaking driver (another first), one Senor Gonzalez had his own business card and boasted that he could take us back to Guanajuato- in complete silence- for only about $10 more than the bus tickets would cost us.

San Miguel de Allende has been accused of being essentially an Epcot-center-like pavilion of Mexican culture, long on color and charm but short on authenticity. The very fact that we’d been picked up by an English speaking, air-con using driver in a new car seemed a testament to this notion, but we weren’t complaining. There are so many elderly American snowbirds in San Miguel, that it does rather have the vibe of an American retirement community, albeit one with substantially more Mexican restaurants, souvenir stands and aggressive beggars. It is still a very pleasant place- with interesting churches, good food, and colonial-era architecture.

Leo had seen enough of San Miguel after a few hours, so we asked the waiter at Ten Ten Pie, a nice little taco place near the cathedral, to call Senor Gonzalez to come pick us up in his dream machine. Twenty minutes later a dilapidated old Nissan Sentra came sputtering up to the restaurant. Much to my dismay, he was looking for us. Senor Gonzalez was sick, he claimed. I pointed to the air vents in the car and asked if he had A/C. It was about 90 degrees and the oppressive sun had worn all three of us down. The driver assured us that he had A/C and turned it on full blast to demonstrate. Nothing but an avalanche of very hot air came out. Just wait, it takes time he said.

Five minutes into our trip, we were still broiling. It was clear that our new ride had no A/C. Suddenly the whole notion of paying more to take a taxi back to Guanajuato didn’t seem so ingenious any more. For all of Primera Plus’s faults- and there were many- they did at least have A/C. I tried to calculate what was preferable- a silent, yet sweltering ride in a battered old cab, or a cooler, noiser ride on a bus.
“Call Senor Gonzalez and ask him if you can use his car to drive us,” I asked.

The driver called someone, but claimed this was impossible. Irritated at this obvious bait and switch scam, and with beads of sweat poring down my back, I instructed our driver to take us to the San Miguel bus station. He very grudgingly complied, but when we pulled up, the place seemed deserted, so I instructed Jen and Leo to wait in the car while I jumped out, and determined that the next bus for Guanajuato left in nearly two hours on the dreaded Primera Plus line. So the option was continue on with an angry driver in his sweltering hot car in the middle of the afternoon in the scorching sun, or sit with a crabby, tired 17 month old child in an un-air-conditioned bus station for nearly two hours only to wait for a bus that would no doubt feature blaring, bad American movies dubbed into Spanish, and perhaps Mexican cartoons as well.

It was a no brainer- so I sheepishly told the drive to take us on to Guanajuato. He’d had it with us by that point, but wasn’t about to kick us out of his cab either. As soon as we got outside of town and our driver was able to put the peddle to the metal, I immediately began to question my decision to entrust this man with our lives. A confluence of factors seemed to be working against us- our driver was clearly insane to begin with, he was trying to make up time lost on the bus station detour, and he was obviously angry with us and worn down from my complaints about the lack of A/C and the bait and switch auto scheme.

As unpleasant as the trip to San Miguel had been on Primera Plus, I had not noticed how curvy the road was. I’ve had many bad cab driver in my life- Cairo certainly stands out as one place where I remember particularly risky drivers- but our driver on this afternoon was driving with a vengeance- accelerating into hair raising curves on lonely, high elevation roads with no guard rails. I looked in the back seat and saw that Leo was sleeping on his mother’s lap (no seat belts in the back seat), his hair fluttering in the hot breeze that whipped in through the open windows. I couldn’t help but think of what an irresponsible parent I was, and how miserable it would be to die in a musty old Nissan Sentra on one of Mexico’s forlorn byways. Instead of asking him to slow down- I made a show of clutching onto the hand rests when he’d fly around a dangerous curve at top speed, and occasionally would hold my hands up in front of my chest, as if to brace myself for a trip through the windshield.

Despite how fast the driver was going, and how he’d aggressively pass two or three trucks at a time- often on blind curves and uphill portions of the road- the ride seemed to be taking forever. My t-shirt was soaked with perspiration and no matter which way we turned, I always seemed to have the sun beating right on me. We passed through a dry, mocha colored, desolate landscape- if the car broke down, we’d be stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no garages around for many miles. It looked like the kind of place where one could easily die of thirst.

Miraculously we reached what seemed to be the outskirts of Guanajuato alive, but just as I began to practically taste the comforts of our hotel room, the sounds of a police siren poisoned my brightening mood. The driver pulled to the side of the road and turned off the motor. I was literally baking in the hot sun, and braced myself for a lengthy delay. Even though I was obviously displeased by the turn of events, I felt somewhat vindicated by the police action- our man had been driving like a maniac and richly deserved to be ticketed.

My hombre stepped out of the cab and met two officers just a few feet behind the car. I could see them in the mirror and could make out some of the Spanish language conversation that ensued. The police claimed he was going 90 in a 40 zone, although I think their estimate of his speed was charitable. Our driver unleashed his entire afternoon of frustration on the cops- the word “gringos” was thrown about liberally, and each time he used it, I detected looks of empathy and knowing nods of concern from the officers. I picked up enough of the Spanish to understand the crux of his defense: he had no choice but to speed because the gringos were angry about his non-functioning air conditioning. The whole thing was our fault. After making his closing arguments, the driver jogged back to the cab, grabbed a fistful of pesos ( I couldn’t tell how much) from a secret hiding spot underneath the wheel. The cops were paid, and off we went, not two minutes after the initial stop.

The driver peeled out, squealing tires and all, and zoomed off, leaving the cops in a storm of dust. If he was angry before, now he was livid, and seemed determined to drive us over a cliff, or perhaps into a tree. Somehow we arrived in the city intact, and it was obvious that the driver had no idea how to find our hotel, so I gladly agreed to get out and walk the rest of the way-so relieved was I to be alive and out of his greenhouse like sweatshop of a car. I paid the man and he roared off without comment or thanks. He was so mad he could hardly look us in the eyes. Whatever profit he was to make from the trip, had surely been eroded by the bribe he had to pay to mollify the police. Somehow, despite the fact that our driver had been going at least twice as fast as the bus, it had actually taken us 10 minutes longer to ride in his cab than it had to take the bus. I can only guess that he took a more circuitous route to avoid tolls.

Looking back on the incident- and I began to do so as soon as we left his cab- I couldn’t help but feel compelled by the fact that our disparate cultures and upbringings caused us both to conclude that we were the aggrieved parties. We were angry because we’d negotiated a price to ride in comfort with A/C in a new car, and that wasn’t we got. In his mind, he surely thought- I ride around in this old car without A/C every day, why can’t they just deal with it for an hour or so? The sun also probably did not feel that hot to him- he was used to it, and was not sweating like I was. Because we were on vacation, we felt as though we were entitled to a relaxing, comfortable trip, but certainly his perspective was: what do these rich gringos have to complain about? They are enjoying a nice holiday while I’m stuck here driving in this shitty old cab to make a living. In some ways, we were both right, but what I can definitively conclude from the experience is that comfort is always relative, safety is a state of mind, and silence is golden. Especially when Martin Lawrence is involved.

The Ignorance Files- Ignorant Customer Service

Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #1: 5/16ths of a Pound of Baloney

The other day I asked a deli clerk at my local supermarket for a third of a pound of swiss cheese. The plump young gal taking care of me started slicing away on her machine vigorously. She kept churning and churning and I began to wonder if she might have heard me incorrectly. Sure enough, she plopped a massive stack of swiss cheese slices on her scale- a bit more than 3/4ths of a pound.

"I just wanted a third of a pound," I protested.
She looked at the scale and said, "it is a third."
"But it says .77," I countered, beginning to wonder if she was putting me on.
"Well, its a bit more than a third," she conceeded.
"A bit more?" I asked, "its more than 3/4ths of a pound, I wanted 1/3rd of a pound."

She looked totally confused so I added, "point thirty three on your scale", acknowledging that they friendly, portly young lass must have been absent the day they taught fractions in grammar school. The clerk nodded her head as though she understood. But then she took all of the slices off the scale save for just one, and then said, in all seriousness, "i didn't realize you wanted like just one slice of cheese." I looked at her puzzled until I realized that she was trying to make her scale read .033 instead of .33. After some remedial math tutoring, I eventually got my cheese- and managed to refrain from asking her for anything involving even more complex fractions.

I arrived home eager to tell my wife about my fuzzy math problem at the Jewel deli counter, but she was not sympathetic.

"A third? You asked for 1/3 lb? No one does that- you have to deal in quarters," she said, looking at me like I was the ignorant one, instead of the clerk.
" I wanted 1/3- 1/4 wasn't enough, and 1/2 was too much, i mean, its not like I asked for 5/8ths or something really challenging."

My wife may have had a point, but if I were hiring deli slicers- I'd probably only ask them 3 questions- 1) do you have any communicable diseases? 2) ever accidentally slice off one of your fingers?, and 3) can you do fractions?

Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #2: The Customer is Always a Piece of Shit

I arrived at the Budget Rent-A-Car desk in Albuquerque, New Mexico after a long flight from Chicago at nearly 10pm on a wednesday night. My wife Jen, and 8 month old son, Leo, took a seat as I joined the back of a line that was 5 or 6 customers deep. We planned to drive an hour to Santa Fe, check into our hotel and get Leo to sleep, as it was already 3 hours past his bedtime. The line didn't move for what seemed like ages- every single customer in front of me seemed to have some kind of problem, but I coudln't hear exactly what people were saying.

When I'm stuck waiting in a long line, I have the unhealthy habit of trying to speculate on why others are taking so long, while formulating strategies on how I believe the people behind the counter could be doing their jobs more efficiently. In this case, there were three clerks "working" but one of them kept disappearing into the back room for extended periods of time. The other clerk was shadowed by a man who- if i had to speculate on his formal job description- appeared to have no other fuction besides looking over his colleagues shoulder and staring at his computer screen while furrowing his acne covered brow.

By the time I reached the counter, years later, I was nearly elligible for a senior citizens discount on my car, but I tried to let by-gones be by-gones and present a friendly face in the hopes of getting a good car. My wife, Jen, has frequently accused me of demonstating a "Mr. Nice Guy" persona while requesting flight, hotel or rental car upgrades that bears no resemblence to my actual cynical, impatient and mean spirited real self. She may have a point. In any event, i pulled out my best self in the hopes of snagging a good car.

"We only have mini-vans," said the sullen Latina clerk, who had spent most of the previous half-hour plotting the destruction of planet earth from the back room while those of us in line cursed the gods and pondered the meaning of life while wondering what the hell she was up to "back there."
"But I reserved a compact car," I protested, brandishing my priceline.com confirmation e-mail.
"It doesn't matter- all I have is minivans!" she said, before adding, "do you want one or not?"
I had already pre-paid for the car via www.priceline.com, so not taking the car wasn't an option, but with gas at $4 a gallon, the last thing I wanted was a massive gas guzzler.
I asked to speak with the surly Latina's supervisor.
"You'll have to wait," she said.

By this point, I would have rather been granted immediate access to hell rather than join a queue to get into Hugh Hefner's mansion, such was my level of impatience, so I asked my surly friend why there weren't any cars smaller than the size of your average Wall-Mart greeter's ass, or something along those lines.

She went on a lengthy diatribe against priceline.com and those who use it- essentially branding us cheapskates who want the world served to them on a silver platter- while admonishing me to book directly with budget in the future.
"So let me get this straight," I said, in my best prosecutor delivering his final arguments fashion, "if i had booked directly with budget- you would find something other than a minivan for me?"
"Well, no, we only have minivans," she conceeded.
"So then help me out here- what's the relevance of your whole diatribe against priceline customers? Either way I'd get stuck with a minivan, right?"
This query seemed to send her over the edge.
"I've been dealing with angry customers all night, and I'm just sick of it!" she railed, "if you keep yelling at me (note: she was the one yelling, not me) i'm not even going to rent you the car, now do you want the minivan or not?"
"Yessssss, I would love a minivan," I said sarcastically.

So i took the damn minivan, and wouldn't you know it, as we dragged our refugee like mass of belongings across the Budget parking lot, we noticed that there were several regular cars in the lot, and not just minivans. Lacking the strength to tromp back inside to do battle with the surly Latina, I approached a Budget employee sitting in a glass hut in the parking lot.
"I reserved a compact car- why can't I get one of those?" I asked, pointing towards a row of Hyundai Sonata's.
"Oh the Hyundai's- no those are premium cars, you couldn't get one of those!" he said, as though the very notion of me- obviously an unkempt street urchin with a compact car reservation- driving a Hyundai were out of the question. Someday, someday I tell you, I will aspire to drive a Hyundai. (but for now, i'll just drive un-cool minivans or whatever other shit I get foisted upon me at rental counters)

Ignorant Customer Service Interlude #3: Commando Style

Later on in this same trip, we arrived at Denver's gleaming international airport, which is conveniently located amidst vast empty fields only 3 hours from downtown Denver. The airport is also conveniently situated only about three hours away from the offsite car rental counters. We were delighted to walk into Thrifty rent-a-car's vast car rental salon and see four counter clerks and not a single customer! Nirvana. The only problem was that with no line, our friendly clerk, a recent immigrant from Ethiopia, was in no hurry at all. After nearly 20 minutes- yes- twenty minutes of agonizing questions interspersed between amharic language banter with his Ethiopian colleauges behind the counter, he told us we'd be getting- you guessed it- a Hyundai! My new Ethiopian friend described it to us as "small SUV that is goot on gass". I was thrilled to find a company willing to let me get behind the wheel of some real serious Korean engineering.

We lugged all of our worldly posessions- including Leo's stroller, car seat, food supply, diapers, toys, sippy cups, and what not-out to our designated spot. Only there was no Hyundai, but instead a truly collosal behemoth called the Jeep Commando or some such thing. It looked like it might get about a furlong to the gallon, on a good highway, if you were driving 45mph. "Where the hell is my freaking Hun-dai?" I muttered to no one in particular. I marched back inside while Jen and Leo stood by our belongings, which were stewn about the parking lot.

The Ethiopian man whom I had dealt with previously was nowhere to be found. The hall was still devoid of customers, but now there was just one clerk- an indifferent young man that seemed to be the only non-Ethiopian working there on this day.
He looked at my reservation.
"You reserved a small SUV," he said.
"Right, and your colleague was sorting me out with a Hyundai, but when I got out there it was this huge Commando thing, I don't want a huge SUV," I said, "I noticed that there were several Jeep Laredo's in the parking lot, can I have one of those?"
"The Commander is a better ride than the Lardeo," he said.
"Look- I don't want a huge SUV- just give me something that's going to be more fuel efficient."
The clerk tried to tell me that he couldn't give me any of the cars in the parking lot, other than the monster Commander or Commando or whatever the hell its called, because all the other cars were reserved for "blue chip" members.

"So, since I'm not a blue chip member, I can't get the car I want?" I asked.
"Well, we reserve certain vehicles for our loyal blue chip customers," he said.
"So how much does it cost to become a blue chip member?" I asked.
"Oh, its free," he said.
"So if I sign up for your program, you'll give me the Laredo?" I asked.
"I'm giving you the Commander," he said.
"Look, I don't want to spend a fortune on gas," I said, hoping to appeal to his sense of logic and "thrift".
"I could prove to you that the Commander gets the same gas mileage as the Laredo, but even if I showed you, you still probably wouldn't believe it, would you?" he asked smugly, shaking his head in disgust. (note: i looked it up later and the commander does NOT get the same gas mileage as the Laredo)

I wrote his name down and asked to speak to his supervisor.
"Do you want my employee number too?" he asked, seeing me write his name down.
Nearly an hour after we arrived at their empty office, we drove off in the Laredo. These days, if you want to rent anything smaller than the Titanic, better wear a suit of armor with you to the rental counter and be prepared to fight.