travel

There's Too Much Blood In My Alcohol System

bitch teeIn Mexico you will see a lot of United States T-Shirts. You know the ones that say things like “I’m a Little Bit Country” or “Wilson Athletic Gear” or “Sexy” in glittery letters.

Some T-Shirt commentaries are downright nasty or embarrassing. The thing is this – it is most likely that the Mexican wearer of the T-shirt has no idea of the meaning of what it says.

Early on in our Mexican experience we would go to friend’s casas for a fiesta of some sort, the hostess might be wearing a nice black shirt with “I’m a Bitch” in gold lettering. I was pretty sure in this case it was not true. A lot of my amigos kid about their, and sometimes my, nagging wife.

They have a saying "Pica la gallina” roughly translated this means she is picking on you and probably NOT in a good mood (actually it is ‘the hen is picking on you’). One hombre in the Hood, every time I see him, this is the theme of conversation between him and me. He just gets such a kick out of suggesting Anita is picking on me. I think these macho men think north of the border origin guys (gringos) are hen pecked anyway.

The truth of the shirt nomenclature is they have NO IDEA what it says. A very modest Catholic Mujere can be sporting SEXY across her chest without the faintest idea what it means. In a few cases Anita has set her girlfriends straight – the shirt is never to be seen again. Suffice it to say, que cuerpo teedo not assume anything about a Mexican broadcasting some T-shirt sentiment.

My long time Blogging Amiga Billie in San Miguel has an entry about beans being sold in a 55 gallon drum that is labeled as toxic waste of some kind. Here I am assuming the Mexican populous has no idea what the warning on this drum might be. As it is one of Billie’s readers had to better define exactly what chemical had possibly been prior resident of that drum.

The title to this post came from a T-shirt I once saw. I wish I had some of these to distribute to a few of the hombres here in the Hood. Fellows that are occasionally found sleeping on the sidewalks or swaggering from curb to curb while pulling a burro behind them.

Being an environmentalist type, I appreciate the sentiment of this recently seen shirt: “EARTH FIRST! We’ll strip-mine the other planets later”.

John Calypso lives in Veracruz, Mexico. Back in the 60s, he was a very hip guy living in Hollywood and rubbing shoulders with Beatles and Monkees. Read lots more in his blog, Viva Veracruz.

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