Uno Mas Cerveza, Por Favor!

Yeah.. thats about the extent of my spanish speaking abilities despite living in Arizona for 10 years. Im sure its not spelled right, but as long as you were sober enough to get something close to that out, they would bring you another beer. Unfortunately it was usually a Tecate. If you have not had the pleasure of trying that beer, just understand that it is the Busch Light of Mexico. It would probably be about as enjoyable to collect all the beer left over at say a football game, pour it into a big vat and let it sit in the sun for a few days and then bottle it and drink it. Yes.. its THAT good.

The reason this all came to mind today was an article on CNN about Nogales, Mexico being added to the US Travel Advisory alerts. See article here. I went to school down at UofA in Tuscon.. which is a mere 60 miles from the border with Mexico at Nogales. If you are unaware, there is no drinking age in Mexico, so it was a popular place to go for college kids. For the sun and atmosphere of course. No one was looking for booze or anything.. rest assured Mom.

We would sucker someone into being a DD and drive down to the border. Park at the McDonald's on the US side and walk across. We had interesting times down there. I don't remember seeing any violence down there, although at one point I did fear for my safety. It was not due to political tension in Mexico though. Rather it had to do with the rather large drunk guy we had with us.

See we had gone down to have a few drinks at one of the clubs there. Well one of our friends, Matt, decided he wanted a few beers. A whole bucket of them to be exact. We ordered a bucket for the table and he ordered a bucket for himself. He proceeded to drain 6 beers in about 45 minutes and despite being a big guy, he was drunk. So when they started the tequila congo line, he through that was a great idea and joined in.

In case you aren't familiar with the tequila congo line, image a 5 foot tall mexican with a massive bottle of tequila standing on a ladder while drunk partygoers congo under the stream of tequila he is pouring. Now most go through quick for a shot or so worth and then leave the dance floor. Matt however made several passes for good measure and was taking his time going under each time.

So now, he is PLASTERED. I mean barely able to function as a human being plastered. That didn't stop him from stealing beers from our bucket. As the night went on, it got worse, not better. Now we were all about ready to go and we realized that we had to somehow get him back across the border. I mentioned that he is a big guy. I forgot to mention that this club is in the basement of the building and there is a long steep flight of stairs to gain access to the street.

Matt can't even stand at this point, much less walk. There was no way he was going to navigate the flight of stairs without killing himself. So we got on either side of him and maneuvered him to the stairs. Problem is, the stairs were also narrow, meaning we couldn't stay on the side of him and get up the stairs. So one of us was pulling him and the other two were pushing.. trying to get him up the stairs. We had a whole bar full of people watching.. waiting for the ensuing tragedy of 4 college students dying in a drunken fall down the stairs.

After about 15 minutes of struggle, we managed to get him up and out with only minor injuries. What we came out of the bar too was a major street party. Normally this would have been cool and fun, but when you have a big drunk guy barely able to stand much less walk, and there are drunk mexicans standing.. sitting.. lying all over the street, the last thing you want is your drunk ass friend stepping on people and starting fights.

There were many tense moments as he we tried to control his careening around the streets towards the border crossing. He was loud, obnoxious, bumping into people, spilling drinks and getting dirty looks. I was just waiting for the whole thing to turn into a bad scene out of El Mariachi. Fortunately, we made it to the border with only one knife fight. I have the scar to this day, but the other guy was much worse off. Ok ok.. so the scar is from my apendix removal, but the knife fight in Mexico is a much cooler story so I am sticking with it.

Now the border guards are quite used to drunk college kids coming back across the border. Its not a rare thing. I don't think they expected what was coming that night though. As we push Matt across the border, we were getting our IDs ready. Matt however decided it was time to make a bold politcal statement and pulls his pockets inside out.. stretches them to the side and yells at the top of his lungs "HOOVER FLAGS!" Ummm... wtf?



Yeah.. so apparently Mr. TooDrunkToWalk just remembered some obscure history fact he had read back in high school somewhere. Here is the jist of it:

When the U.S. stock market crashed in 1929, President Herbert Hoover attempted to stop the U.S. economy from spiraling into what has become known as the Great Depression. Although President Hoover took action, most people agree that it just wasn't enough. Upset at Hoover, people began to give items that represented the economic crisis negative nicknames. For instance, shanty towns became known as "Hoovervilles." "Hoover blankets" were newspapers that homeless people used to protect themselves from the cold. "Hoover flags" were pants pockets that had been turned inside out, symbolizing a lack of money.



Now why on earth he picked the border crossing to remember this or why he thought it was a good idea to put on his little demonstration at the top of his lungs in the face of the border guards, we will never know. We managed to settle him down enough to get out his ID so we could cross, and headed for the car. When we thought we were done with wierd stuff for the night, we had an illegal who had snuck across the border somewhere creep up to our car and beg us to put him in the trunk and take him to Tuscon with us. The car was full.. but he didn't care.. the trunk was OK with him.

I know.. sounds like the plot to a bad National Lampoon movie. 4 college kids on their way back from Nogales with an illegal in the trunk! What could possibly go wrong?

Anyway.. I guess if you go for a ice cold Tecate or a flaming shot down in Nogales these days, bring your passport.. and your body armor. And whatever you do, make sure you don't drink the water. If you do.. you will be looking for the closest gun battle to put you out of your misery. :P