Category Archives: Life in the Yucatan

The good, the bad and the ugly. Telling it like I see it for over 10 years now.

In Case You Missed This – The Truth About The Drug War in Mexico

Inspired, Life in the Yucatan, Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Written by Don Winslow, for the Huffington Post

Mexico’s drug problem isn’t.

Mexico’s drug problem, that is.

It’s America’s drug problem.

And our looking at it backwards is a huge part of the problem itself.

We sit and blame Mexico for smuggling drugs across our border as if we were innocent in all this. As if the evil (and they are) Mexican drug cartels are forcing Americans at gunpoint to consume illicit drugs.

(The proposition is not as far-fetched as its sounds. In 1842, Great Britain forced China to accept opium importation, and took the island of Hong Kong to use as a staging base.)

We condemn Mexico for exporting drugs while ignoring the inverse dynamic — we are importing the drugs. We are the ones bringing in 20 tons of heroin, 110 tons of methamphetamine, 330 tons of cocaine and literally countless tons of marijuana annually.

The cartels could stack up drugs on this side of the border until California tilted into the ocean, and if we weren’t using them, it wouldn’t matter. The drugs would be worthless, instead of the multi-billion dollar product that we have made them.

Mexico has every right to be furious.

We insist that the Mexican government ‘crack down’ on the drug cartels, while at the same time we maintain the world’s largest drug market just across its border. We condemn Mexico for its corruption while ignoring the societal rot in our own culture. We act appalled at the (appalling) level of violence in Mexico without ever acknowledging our own share of the responsibility for perpetuating it.

Just for the sake of getting a different perspective, turn the map upside down for a second. Just to get a fresh look, put Mexico to our north and consider the situation.

What if we had highly-armed, wealthy and immensely powerful criminal organizations thriving in the United States — ‘cartels’ whose combined power rivaled the national government. Let’s say that they had enough money to bribe politicians, judges, police, even the military. Let’s suppose that they felt so insulated from consequences that they assassinated police chiefs, mayors and journalists. That they were responsible for an average of ten thousand violent deaths or disappearances a year. That they conducted unspeakably grisly tortures by way of vengeance and intimidation. In the streets of New York, Chicago and L.A.

Now let’s say that Mexico funded them.

To the tune of $25 billion annually.

Go just a little further and say that Mexican entrepreneurs supplied them with the guns they use to kill.

How long would the U.S. tolerate that situation?

Months? Weeks? Days?

What if Mexican drug consumers were funding, let’s say, terrorist organizations inside the United States? How long would it be before the tanks started rolling?

But that’s exactly what we do to Mexico. Our drug money goes south (along with our guns), perpetuating the power of the violent cartels, creating untold misery and suffering for the Mexican people, destabilizing their society, government and economy.

(It is estimated that fully 10% of Mexico’s economy is built on drug proceeds.)

At the same time, we commit more billions ($10 billion in 2011, twice what we spent of treatment and prevention) to try to interdict the drug traffic, money that only drives up the price and gives more profit and power to the cartels that control the prime smuggling turf. We increase the violence in Mexico both by buying the drugs and then by trying to stop them from coming in.

And then we call it the ‘Mexican drug problem.’

We’re Mexico’s drug problem.

by Don Winslow, Huffington Post, 20 July 2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-winslow/mexico-war-on-drugs_b_1688907.html

A Quick Visit to KFC in the Gran Plaza Mall

Life in the Yucatan, , , , , , , , ,

I am feeling hungry and the ticket guy at the movie theater won’t let me in ‘cuz he says it’s too early for the 4:10 showing of Spiderman which is the only new movie this week and I really don’t feel like watching last weeks offerings of Madagascar 17 and Ice Age 42 and the Mel Gibson rent-payer Get the Gringo which I downloaded illegally anyway from piratebay.org and watched on my laptop and was amazed at how bad it was so why pay to see it in the theater and so I walk by all the food vendors in the “food court” at the Gran Plaza mall, finally settling on KFC and some fried chicken.

If you want to screw up their little system ask for two pieces of chicken. Just the chicken. The initial smile from Yael, a chubby, effeminate and very ebullient little employee faded as he looked back at the menu board and then told me it would be more economical for me to order the combo, with two pieces of chicken, a styro container of their starchy instant mashed potato with the euphemistically named gravy, another styro container of their sugar and mayo laden cole slaw and a nourishing white flour biscuit as well as a soda to complete the fat intake. No, I just want the chicken, I told Yael. He hesitated, and then very professionally the smile returned to his round face and he charged me the 32 pesos.

My order was then passed on to another employee and I was sent along the counter to wait. I watched as the employee doing the actual placing of food in bags, double check with Yael to make sure that she had read correctly – only two pieces of chicken. Nothing else. Yes, Yael nodded, smiling at me. Meanwhile, an employee in the back of the restaurant, sucking back a refresco, was hugged and then kissed on the shoulder by another employee. The fact that they were both males did not startle me as much as they fact that they were in KFC and in full view of the public. I am convinced that in racially tolerant and sexually liberal Kentucky the idea of two Mexicans kissing in the local KFC would go over well.

Ruzzel – yes, that’s Ruzzel with two Z’s, another creative Yucatecan version of an English name – was in charge of handing the bag of food to the customer and carefully looked at the ticket, then at me.

“No va a querer refresco?” he asked, doubtfully.

“No”, I replied, “solo el pollo“.

After getting an affirmative nod from cheerful-again cashier Yael, he handed me my bag with two pieces of chicken and off I went to find a spot in the crowded mall to eat it. The chicken was hot and the original recipe still tasted pretty darn good.

Gym Stories – Two Weeks In

Life in the Yucatan

My impossibly fit trainer says I am doing well. Doing better. Whatever. Muscles still hurt after each session and I attribute that to him piling on the weight at every opportunity.

“I want to see you fail” he says. And with a horrible grimace as I make a supreme but ineffectual effort, I do just that.

I still feel like a 98 pound weakling looking for that Charles Atlas ad at the back of the comic book.

Wanting to understand a bit more of the gym culture, being as it is somewhat foreign to me, I looked up gym locker room etiquette and found this great article: http://kea.hubpages.com/hub/Mens-Locker-Room-Etiquette which made me chuckle.

At “my” gym, you see, there is a lot of blow drying going on and while I haven’t seen anyone blow drying their pubes (mentioned as a potential faux pas in the article mentioned above) I have observed the earnest (this is when you blow dry with one hand and run the other hand through the hair being dried all the while staring earnestly at yourself in a mirror) drying of chest hair, arm hair, leg hair and just this morning, feet. Yes, someone was drying their feet with the blow dryer, just prior to putting on FLIP FLOPS. How dry do your feet have to be when putting on flip flops anyway?

Anyway, in spite of all that OCD blow-drying and the extra weight from the trainer who wants me to fail, I am not ready to call it quits just yet.

As Arnold famously said, I’ll be back.

 

Don Ambrosio and the Hacienda Lifestyle

Life in the Yucatan, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Don Ambrosio’s joints ached. As he climbed the stairs to the platform containing the rusting remains of the haciendas henequen scraping machine, 3 large white ladies in straw hats and plaid shorts bearing what must surely be expensive camera equipment close on his heels, he suddenly felt older than his 73 years. He was getting tired of this, showing a seemingly never-ending stream of tourists the ruined plantation that had been a part of his life for the last 60 years.

He turned to face them, directing his gaze at each of the three flushed red faces that stared back at him expectantly. Two had already raised their cameras and were pointing them directly at him; he wondered if he should start a little song and dance number. Wearily, he took a battered henequen leaf – one of his props – from the floor behind a giant metal wheel and, bending it in half, showed them the fiber that would have been extracted and motioned to them how the leaves came up from the fields and onto a conveyor belt that fed them into the scraper, leaving liquid and pulp behind. The tourists snapped away with their cameras and he paused for a moment and smiled a tired smile. His English was unfortunately non-existent and their Spanish was limited to “si” and “no“.

It seemed – no it was – so long ago now that he had worked as a henequen leaf cutter in the vast extensions of land that had once belonged to the plantation, working from 5 AM to 5 PM under the merciless sun for very little pay. In those days, he remembered, there was no question about what one was going to do, or to be, other than a worker at the hacienda. If you were lucky you worked in the hacienda buildings, tending to gardens or perhaps performing cleaning duties for the wealthy owners who spent an inordinate amount of time lounging around on the expansive terraces, sipping cool jamaica tea or perhaps something a little stronger. If you were less fortunate, you worked in the fields and were woken each morning by a 4 AM whistle that signaled the beginning of another backbreaking day in the fields or on the machines.

The gringas had stopped taking photos and were waiting to move on.

He had already taken them through the haciendas main buildings, including the kitchen, living and dining areas and had tried to explain, as best as he could with his mime techniques, the fact that every room in the hacienda could be converted into a bedroom or sleeping area thanks to multiple hammock hooks on the walls. He had also shown them the office, where he recalled Don Ignacio, the owner, spending many hours poring over papers with the assistance of an accountant making sure that every aspect of the henequen production was recorded, measured and accounted for. The gringas had shown special interest in – and taken many photos of – the wooden desk, now infested by out of sight termites and ants, who were silently reducing the ancient piece of furniture to dust before his very eyes.

He now showed them the silent motors that once ran the scraper machines; hulking steam engines that belched smoke unfettered by environmental concerns into the Yucatan sky for years through tall stone chimneys that rose, San Giminiano-like, above the flat land like lightless-lighthouses and now served as beacons for visitors intrigued by the prospect of exploring the Yucatans rich past. He recalled the noise of these machines that could be heard for miles around and while it may have been annoying, it was the sound of money as well, for this was the time of the so-called “green gold” which made the chosen families – those of European descent – rich beyond their wildest dreams and allowed them to furnish their mansions and plantations with the finest offerings from Europe, from floor tiles and furniture to crystal chandeliers and marble statues.  Meanwhile, Ambrosio, and the other 300 dark-skinned Mayan workers and their families, lived in the most basic conditions and shared none of this wealth. Instead, they were paid a meager salary in currency produced expressly for their hacienda – it was useless anywhere else – and were limited to buying their provisions at the tienda de raya, or company store, at often inflated prices.

He led the gringas on to the hacienda’s small chapel. While they – somewhat disrespectfully he thought – snapped close-up photos of the altar and the haciendas patron saint dressed in a purple frock, he recalled that many of his friends from the village had initially been glad when, in the mid 1930’s, the leftist federal government introduced land reform and forced the hacienda owners to relinquish control of the thousands of acres they had and turn them over to the mostly Mayan workers. These same workers had quickly changed their tune when they realized that without the machinery, still under the control of the hacendados, they were unable to do anything with the henequen plantations. The owners, meanwhile, also came to a similar realization as the upstart Indians began demanding a better price for the plant, thereby cutting into their enormous profit margins and making the business less attractive. Many of Ambrosios friends had then complained that perhaps they had been better off under the old system as they had been more or less taken care of by the hacienda owners, who, while not permitting anyone to improve their lot in life had provided such basics as elementary education, a living wage, basic medical care and a strict dose of Catholicism. Of course it was too late; the federal law was now the law of the land and things were about to get even worse. The invention of synthetic fibers dealt the final death blow to the henequen industry which, through the demand for rope produced from this plant for the worlds shipping industry and many agricultural applications, had made a select few Yucatecans inordinately wealthy.

In a way, he had been glad to see the end of the henequen; glad to see the owners abandon the buildings to find refuge and undertake other business ventures in Merida. With the demise of the hacienda, the beatings, the 12 hour work days and the harsh penalties for the most trivial transgressions also disappeared.

He took the ladies to the hacienda gift shop, where they examined postcards and trinkets and bought refrescos from Ambrosios daughter who had forgone a life in the city of Merida, preferring to remain in the pueblo surrounding the former plantation and work alongside her father. She had never known the hard life he had led in the long-overgrown henequen fields and for that, he was grateful.

The gringas were done with their shopping and handed Ambrosio a $50 peso bill and through their gestures and smiles, he could make out that they were very pleased with the tour, such as it was. He smiled back and said softly, “Gracias.”

Unexpectedly, melancholy tears came to his eyes – the eyes that had seen so much – and he turned away before anyone could see.

He was very tired indeed.

 

Sergio Gets a Phone Call; Regarding Juanita

Life in the Yucatan, Ti'ho Tales, , , , , , , , , ,

The phone rang about four times before Sergio decided to pick it up. It was 9:30 and his wife was out, picking up their exchange student at the airport, otherwise he probably would have let it ring. Maybe the plane was late. He was in the middle of watching a movie he had rented at Blockbuster that afternoon and Bruce Willis was just dispatching another mono-browed bad guy by ripping off his arm with a telephone cord; unlikely, but what did you expect from a gringada called Die Hard III, he thought.

He picked up the phone. “Bueno?”

A calm but somewhat urgent voice of a man on the other end informed him that he was calling on behalf of Juanita Morantes, who had apparently had a nearly fatal encounter with a package of cookies and that he had found her on the sidewalk outside her house. She was alright, said the caller, who gave his name as Marco, but was still a little shaken and since he had asked if there was someone to call, she had given him Sergios number.

Sergio listened while the stranger explained that the police paramedics had come and gone and had pronounced her fine, before muttering a “gracias” and then adding “y ella quiere que la vaya a ver?” Marco  replied that it was probably a good idea, just to make sure she would be alright and that he really had to be going. “Esta bien” said Sergio before again thanking the stranger and hanging up, a resigned and slightly annoyed expression crossing his face. Whoever heard of someone choking on cookies?

Sergio had not seen his sister Juany in some time, since the last family Christmas dinner when they had had a rather forced encounter over a large, dry turkey and sandwichon dinner. Rebeca, his wife, had been slightly depressed as her parents were not coming from the DF that holiday season due to a last minute Mexicana Airlines strike and Juanita had been as pedantic as ever, complaining about her various ailments and the fact that the house – their parents house, she had reminded everyone – was falling to pieces around her. While pushing aside the romeritos that Rebeca had painstakingly made as part of her Christmas season dinner tradition, Juanita picked at her piece of turkey meat and went on and on about the plumbing, the electricity and the fact that her phone service had been cut due to the fact that she could no longer afford it. When tears came to her eyes during this litany of complaints, Sergio had finally had enough and had stood and gone to the kitchen to fix himself a stiff drink. When he returned to the table sipping his Buchanans he had found Juanita’s chair empty. “Y mi hermana?” he had asked. Rebeca shrugged her shoulders in a resigned way and replied “dijo que se iba a su casa“.

He found her on the street, just down the block from the house, walking to the avenida to catch a bus and asked her if she wouldn’t rather have him drive her home. He did not ask why she had left or insist on her returning to his house to finish dinner. She simply looked at him for a moment with those sad, bovine eyes and replied “No, gracias, anda con tu familia” before turning and continuing her solitary walk on the deserted street. Sergio wasn’t even sure that the buses were running that night, but before long a noisy green Minis 2000 squealed to a halt, cumbia music oozing through open windows and the door. Juanita made her way up the vehicles stairs, the bus lurching forward even as she was still depositing some coins into the drivers fare-box.

Sergio had walked back to the house, both angry and relieved, passing the inflatable Frosty the Snowman his wife had bought at Costco weeks before, and had gone inside. He shook his head. Why had she even bothered to come if all she was going to do was be miserable?

Since then, there had been no news from his sister. Until now.

His sister had always been resentful of the fact that he and his brother had gotten away from the old house after their mother got sick, had gone to study and make something of themselves and had married and were doing well. He did not understand why she did not do the same, preferring to remain in that old dump of a house when she could easily have sold it years ago and taken the money to get a small house in one of the new developments around the city. He had even offered to help her with the Infonavit and get a low interest social housing loan but Juany had refused. “En manos de quien voy a dejar esta casa? La casa de Papa y Mama?” she had asked him.

He slipped out of his house slippers and into his street shoes, buttoning up his shirt as he looked for his car keys and cell phone. Bruce Willis will have to wait, he thought as he dialed Rebeca’s number and closed the door behind him. “Bueno?” he heard Rebeca’s chilanga accent in his ear. In spite of them having been married and living in the Yucatan for years now, she had not lost her sing-song way of speaking, probably due to the fact that she mostly socialized with other wachas who, as a group, felt somewhat ostracized by their Yucatecan counterparts; a certain polite distance was always kept between the ladies who claimed true Yucatecan heritage and the new arrivals from the rest of the country, especially those from Mexico City, el D.F.

“Tengo que ir a ver a Juanita” he explained to Rebeca “se cayó afuera de su casa y me habló un tipo para decirme que la vaya a ver“. He could imagine Rebeca frowning as she heard this but she simply said “está bien” She added that she, Rebequita and Annie had just passed a police checkpoint near the airport, that the plane had arrived on time and they would be home soon.

He arrived at Juanita’s house 15 minutes later, traffic having been mercifully light at this time of the night. After driving around the block he found a place to park, cursing the fact that he had to leave the BMW on the street in the middle of the night for God only knew how long. Who knew what kinds of delinquents and prostitutes were around in the ‘centro historico‘ – he smirked at the thought – once the shops closed and the sun went down. What a pain.

Juanita came to the door a few minutes after he had knocked loudly on the once-grand wooden door that reminded him of his childhood, its blue paint cracked and peeling like a dry lake-bed.

“Pasa” she said and he followed her inside, being careful not to touch anything in case it broke.

The house was a mess, it really was falling apart. Sergio wondered for a moment if this whole incident had not been an excuse to get him to actually come and see for himself what the house looked like; that he would feel some sort of pity or something and offer to help pay for some repairs or whatnot. He had no intention of sinking one single peso into this lost cause of a building, he thought to himself.

“Como estas? Que te pasó?” he asked his sister.

Juanita gave a tired little sigh, and he braced himself for the usual bout of complaining and self pity.

But none came. Juanita simply told him what had happened, that she had gotten a piece of cookie stuck in her throat and had gone outside for help and a man had helped her and she was really quite fine now, thank you very much.

They looked at each other for a moment, then Sergio looked away.

“Pues, si estas bien, te dejo – tengo que regresar porque hoy llega la niña de intercambio de Estados Unidos” he said “quieres venir a pasar la noche con nosotros?” he added, knowing that she would not come yet feeling that he should ask, to be polite.

“No, no no, estoy bien, gracias por venir”  replied Juanita and walked him to the door. He gave her a half-hearted peck on the cheek which she returned with an equal lack of enthusiasm. “Cualquier cosa… me hablas, oiste?” he said before turning away. Juanita nodded and went back inside, closing the old door, both aware that Juanita did not have a phone available to her at that time of the night.

The BMW was still there, having survived it’s short stay in el centro apparently unscathed and Sergio got in, buckled up and drove home as quickly as he could, away from this part of the city that was now foreign and completely unappealing to him.

Day Four at the Gym; on Lockers, Deodorant and Muscle Fatigue

Life in the Yucatan, , , , , , , ,

Thanks to the impossibly fit 50 year old personal trainer who leads my bloated self through the intimidating exercise machine routines with their incomprehensible levers and knobs I am once again deprived of arm movement. On my fourth visit to the gym he put me through what feels like a wringer with probably ridiculously light weights which for this old fart seem unbearably heavy and thanks to his next client – a beach-based real estate agent with no fat that I can detect – being late, I got an extra half hour of this torture. Miraculously, my “faint or puke” reflex has subsided somewhat and I can now move from one set of exercises to another with less steadying time in between. Steadying time, for those unfamiliar with the concept which may or may not be a completely original invention, is the time needed to catch one’s breath, balance and allow blood to return to the brain.

I also “moved in” to “my” locker; which enabled me to try out the facility’s showers and change rooms and found that after a workout, it is highly preferable to have on hand a spray deodorant as opposed to the stick version given the limitations of my previously mentioned arm movement. It would have also desirable to have a locker on the bottom half of the row, not the top, for the same reason.

The showers are the push button water faucet variety, which means they save water and you push that button every 75 seconds or so; the shampoo provided feels more like conditioner in that it doesn’t lather up and so the soap dispenser does the job on the hair as well as the rest of it. Thankfully there are few people in the changeroom when Yours Truly visits so there is no need for jovial banter or the like.

Monday is visit number 5. Should anything exciting or untoward happen, I will write about it.

I Visit the Gym

Inspired, Life in the Yucatan
Yup, that's me!

My feelings, precisely!

While those who know me may gasp in shock and awe; the rest of my readers will find the fact that I have started going to the gym less exciting than yet another trip to the Puuc route or watching white-sandaled dancers with bottles on their heads twirling to an off-key jarana in front of Meridas Palacio Municipal for the nth time. It is to the latter group that I apologize and give permission to click anywhere and find something more interesting to see or read about, like perhaps another cat video on YouTube or the latest article on Yucatan Living.

Actually, it was my Better Half who, probably because she tired of seeing my rather prominent belly and stick legs, gave me the “gift of health” in the form of a membership and monthly dues to the new Sports City or Sport Center gym, located on the Merida-Progreso highway across from the Xcanatun hacienda and at the entrance to a new-ish upscale housing development called Villas Xcanatun or something along those lines. My initial reaction was to blow the whole idea off, but then I have noticed that I am panting a lot more upon reaching the top of the Mayapan pyramid or after a swim in one the Chunkanan cenotes, so I said “what the hell, this might actually help me”

I confess that I have an aversion to gyms and the whole machine vs body culture thing. Plus, I am most definitely not a morning person and think it is ridiculous to have to make oneself somewhat presentable to work out in a room with insanely fit people, who I perceive will watch impatiently as I struggle with complicated machinery composed of weights, springs, handles and adjustments in my clumsy early-morning way. Luckily, a personal trainer is included in the package and so, I have my own personal machine adjuster/calibrator who sets things up and spots me when I am about to choke on a particular exercise.

And choke I do!

I have completed one warm up visit and three full-on one hour weight training sessions, followed by a 30 minute cardio workout on a treadmill. The trainer, let’s call him Ed – whose arms are as fat as my upper thighs except in his case it’s all muscle – insists on piling on a healthy (to him) dose of weight on any and every exercise he assigns me using that old weight-training maxim: “If you can’t do four, then do no more” and “if you can do eight, let’s add some more weight”

What I have noticed is that I spend a rather alarming amount of time between exercises, trying to regain my equilibrium. I feel like I am a) going to throw up and b) about to pass out. Apparently this is due to the blood rushing from my brain and into the newly rediscovered muscles that are pumped up and ‘occluded’ whatever that means. What I understand is that I am dizzy and gasping for breath after just a few reps each of squatting, pushing and pulling.

On the treadmill, I actually work up a glow (pre-sweat), the little heart rate indicator goes from a yellow to a red and things go swimmingly until I turn the machine off and step onto the floor, where at once I feel like I am moving backwards and have to hold on to a wall or something solid in order not to fall over and make a complete ass of myself. After a few moments of standing there hopefully looking non-chalant and pretending to watch the lousy sit-coms on the television overhead, I am able to continue on to the towel counter where I hand in my hardly-used mini-towel at the end of my workout.

I also bought a lock and on todays visit, my third, I actually installed it on my assigned locker; thereby setting aside a little piece of real estate in the gym which I can now fill with a second set of the toiletries I have at home. My goal is to be able to shower and change right there and go on to work without having to go home.

Oh, and to get fit.

“It’s too cold in here” – A Rant

Life in the Yucatan, , , , , , , , , , ,

You can wear a skimpy top and still be warm with a nice rebozo Mexicano

A number of Yucatecos and Yucatecas, and in particular the Yucatecas, love their warmth. Growing up in Merida has left some of them hyper-sensitive (hiper-sensibles) to what they perceive as cold and with the advent of air conditioning this has lead to the occasional complaint about it being ‘too cold’. Women from the pueblos, who work as maids in Merida, acting on traditions handed down from generation to generation will not iron (clothes) with a window open, since this will make them ill. That frigid Yucatan breeze blowing in from the back yard might give them pneumonia, apparently. I always point out, when discussing this interesting notion, that the Swedes seem to be pretty healthy, in spite of their insane practice of heating themselves to the boiling point in a sauna and then frolicking naked in the snow.

I know of at least one (and there are others, I am sure) local woman who, if she is going shopping at Sams or Costco, will take a sweater; ditto for an outing to Cinepolis where she will sit usually at the back or some place where she won’t feel the air conditioning directly. “Donde no me da el aire” is the expression used; where the air doesn’t get me. Getting some fresh asparagus or the latest imported Washington cherries from the icy room in the back of Costco – no matter how fresh they might be in spite of their whopping carbon foot print which is of no concern to anyone – is completely and utterly out of the question. She is aware of her unique-ness and consequently is prepared with a shawl or sweater when she goes out.

What I find irritating is the insistence of some of these ladies – the ones who refuse to take a sweater or shawl “why should I, I am in Merida!” – to complain, in a restaurant, for example or a meeting room at a conference about the air conditioning to the management or their waiter; asking them to turn down the air conditioning because they are cold. What about all the other people in the restaurant or at the conference? Are they cold too? What if they are menopausal or Canadian and are actually hot? Should there be a vote held on the temperature of the room? You have to admire the self-confidence of these individuals who consider their body-temperature issues far more important than those of everyone around them and believe that they are the only people (that matter) in the room.

Imagine this happening elsewhere. You ask the waiter at Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant in Miami Beach to turn down the air conditioning because you are cold and you would be laughed out of the place! “Who the hell are you” the waiter would think to himself before saying “yes, of course” and promptly ignoring you. If he was a Mexican American waiter, which might be a possibility in the United States these days he would also think “ta loca” a la George Lopez. Try visiting Smith and Wollensky’s in New York and asking one of their seasoned waiters from Jersey to “turn up the heat” because you are cold. You would get quite an earful I’m sure.

I had an interesting exchange with someone on Twitter recently – which prompted this rant – in which she was complaining that she should have asked the restaurant manager to turn down the air conditioning “before she asked for the bill, not after, when they were going to turn off the air conditioning anyway” (her tweet) I suggested she take a sweater if she was one of these people who are hiper sensibles to cold air and she replied sarcastically “Oh yes, of course, I should carry around a sweater in Merida if I go out. Good point”

I think so. Turn it down a notch, dear. You’re not that important.