Martin W. Cooper
Jul 20, 2017 · 21 min read

Tell Me the Horse

Vacationing abroad in the Trump era

by. Martin W. Cooper

Having decided to vacation together with my in-laws, my family this summer timeshared our way into a trip to Mexico. A large, diverse country, Mexico borders California, where I live, but no one vacations in the border areas, at least not for more than a Saturday afternoon in TJ. The powers that be identified a site in Cabos San Lucas. We got in the empty corral for TSA Pre [Footnote 1] and watched unenviably as the long line for regular security check got even longer, when what looked like a girls’ either basketball or volleyball team disgorging from a bus and took their place, about 50 of them identically dressed, in what my wife mockingly ventriloquizes me as calling the proletariat queue.

Once airborne I was in the forward lavatory beginning urination (clarification: flow initiated ~1.5–2 seconds prior) when, alarmingly, I observed the toilet seat slowly start to descend. The rate of its descent was obviously too rapid to complete the emptying of my bladder and yet cursedly slow enough for me to frantically triage the possible courses of action, which I surmised to include: (1) midstream pinch off (for the ladies in the audience, this is a notoriously dicey maneuver [that is, using one’s fore finger and thumb to stop main vein draining by kink mechanism] and should only ever be attempted as a last resort because of issues with discomfort, residual dripping, general pressure-associated weirdness and in worst case scenarios when the urethra is pointed upwards with insufficient occlusion can result in pissing in one’s own face, and so I dismissed it, as it were, out of hand) and three other options that did not include interruption of flow, which were; (2) release of member with dominant hand [non-dominant hand necessary for retention of briefs below el gallo and above los cojones], followed by dynamic modulation with legs along vertical axis and stream trajectory adjustment and use of dominant hand to stop descent of seat (challenges here include frantic moment of release when either i. nothing happens, leaving the trajectory unaffected or ii. potential energy liberated by hand release causes unpredictable member movement and associated stream redirection, either of which is combined with bending my legs enough to reach the seat with my hand and miss it with my urine stream, yet not tinkle all over my shorts, whilst trying to ascertain the least icky place on the seat to grab); (3) release of undergarment with non-dominant hand followed by similar calisthenics as in (2) (here, potential energy considerations are lower but peeing on shorts considerations higher); (4) use dominant foot to arrest the seat’s fall (I am fit but not a contortionist and given my height the bathrooms on your average passenger jet are a challenge for me to stand up straight in; thus, although this might seem like the most obvious choice, its seemed then and now as the likeliest one to result in extensive garment micturation); and (5) no change in grip, no adjustment in flow, no attempt to alter the descent of the seat.

Viewed in satellite mode on Google maps, the resort we visited (hereafter, the Resort; for politeness and other, more legalistic considerations, I keep the actual name of the resort we stayed at to myself) is a bloom of dark green plunked in the middle of a brown patch of earth at the southern-most tip of Baja California Sur. Like a Palm Springs golf course or a San Fernando Valley gated community, a manmade flower in the desert. The Resort was 2.5 kilometers west from Divorce Beach, which is connected to Lover’s beach (going further east) which is in turn the gateway to the downtown juggernaut of tourist vendors.

Viewed from the cockpit of our rented minivan, the approach to the Resort and Cabo environs in general leads across a newly constructed toll road through the desert (The road is ultra black, and super smooth, and unadorned with any gas stations or pit stops. It feels built for some type of military operation and, not dispelling this notion, is covered in signs thanking the Mexican government for the largesse to build it.) which is a straight shot from the airport to the southern tip of the peninsula, depositing the traveler in the middle of the shanty towns that surround the tourist hub. This road is unpopular with pretty much everyone except the tourists, including locals who now have FOB Americans taking wrong turns down one way streets and scaring kids and dogs and causing accidents as well as local business owners along the strip, who relied on the first pass arrival along the old main road through town to germinate interest amongst the still pasty neophytes in beer, tattoos, food, women and knickknacks.

A few short turns through the ghetto off the toll road and we are through the majestic gates of the Resort, heralded by impeccably uniformed (and as I would come to find out, impeccably friendly) Resort employees and a copious use of water: this is the desert mind you, but you wouldn’t know it from the fountains, koi ponds, lush flower gardens and seemingly ubiquitous and tall and lush green foliage that strategically masks any view out of the Resort once you are inside, reminding me of the amazing way Vegas casinos make it almost impossible to see the sunshine after just a couple rows of slots.

We pull into the main lobby area which is swarming with uniformed Resort muchachos who wrangle our luggage, valet the car and usher us to check-in. I take this opportunity to scoot away from my family and inspect the grounds: the main building is an 8 story behemoth perched on top of a hill that overlooks the Pacific. Between the main building and the ocean are ~10 smaller buildings of similar construction but smaller size — the residences — each of which has around 50 rooms and its own pool. A serpentine golf cart appropriate road encircles the smaller buildings and is the only way to reach the residences from the main building. Huge, insanely groomed palm trees and ficas decorate the view along the cart path, along with what seem like hundreds of artfully placed bird-of-paradise flowers and multiple other ones I can’t name. I spot what looks like — and I would later confirm actually is — a live peacock strolling around the grounds. The enormous waves crashing onto the shore are, in southern California parlance, double overheads, and there is a vicious rip current: you don’t swim on the Pacific side in Cabo [Footnote 2], but the sound of the surf and the picturesque wave breaks make its beaches prime real estate. The view from the balcony is truly breathtaking and I am for a moment perplexed as to how all the other new arrivals in the lobby are buzzing around asking about the gym and the wifi rather than hanging their torsos out the window as I am doing.

Filial summoning wrests me from this perch after which I am informed that my wife and her parents have been offered a “terrific deal” during check in. What, I warily inquire, might that be. All we have to do is meet up for breakfast tomorrow and hear about a new property under development further north west on the Pacific side. Thankfully before I have much time to consider this foregone decision, we are whisked onto one of the 8 seater golf carts (which were pretty nifty custom 3 speed gas-powered stick shift 6-wheeler Cushmans…you’d burn out the brakes in a week on a single speed or automatic) and chauffeured to our room, which was 1228, or as I would proudly phonetically pronounce when asked for it throughout the week, doce veinte-ocho. We dropped our bags, tipped the bellman and walked through the condo to take in yet another view of the stunning Pacific coast, its tremendous waves now close enough to percuss the windows.

The Economist, whose editors have a poorly disguised tumescence for Silicon Valley, recently ran a piece in which they claimed that in America, almost half of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants. Viewed from the other side of either of her moats, America still seems appealing to many from around the world looking for education and employment, and so this fact may not seem all that surprising: if you can convince the best players to join your team, you’ll have the best shot at winning. But from inside the fortress, a different narrative — that hard work, yes greater intelligence and perhaps even (Judeo-Christian, naturally) divine providence have endowed the USoA with the privileged global position she has enjoyed for the past half century — reigns, one that is simpler, that appeals to ego and that enables (in the same way a self-help book for the emotionally inert, hyper successful is meant to assuage guilt for EQ [Footnote 3] deficiencies) Americans to travel the globe and feel like everything has been set up for their viewing pleasure.

The “main pool” at the Resort is actually four interconnected pools, each of them the size of a Walmart, plus a lazy river, three bars and a hot tub the size of my garage. At one of the walk-up bars, after only about 15–20 minutes in the pool, we meet our first group from San Diego, down for a wedding tomorrow and the bachelor party tonight. The Blood Mary I order is literally tomato juice and vodka and the Corona Lite on inspection is revealed to be 3.9% ABV. They are pushing something called a ‘Miami Vice’, which I order and turns out to be half Pina Colada half strawberry smoothie and which because of the heat I suck down so fast I get brain freeze. You can tell where people are at in their week by the amount of burn and by how much they lean on the side of the pool: new arrivals bounce around in the sun; 5th dayers slink in the shadows hiding balding pates under straw hats. Those with the blue wrist bands indicating they plumped for all-inclusive race from chairs to pool to bar, constantly hailing the waiters [Footnote 4] and with a harried look in their eyes, worried about under-consumption. There’s a group of women in the cabanas next to where my in-laws have found seating trying to coordinate a 5-person-we-made-it-here-and-you-need-to-fucking-know-about-it-duckface-from-the-pool-wild-out picture. Two of the women are not playing nice, one or the other keeps nonchalantly looking away or blinking or touching her face at precisely the wrong time on purpose and so the picture is retaken exactly 7 times, each of which require interruption of conversation and look over here all at once and smile commands, met with protestations about making me look good and cleaning those up and you need to use a filter and you need to use the Snapchat app.

There’s a not insignificant chance, I’m thinking no negative exponents needed to establish significance distinguishing amongst the possible outcomes over the next two years or so, that a large portion of the developed world will be obliterated as a result of nuclear exchange. But I wouldn’t say that its guaranteed, nor would I say that it is by any means unlikely that my children will reach adulthood, become of college age, perhaps attend post-secondary education of some type (or not) — but one hopes they will at least move out of the house and make monetary and affection demands from a (close) distance — and leave me and my wife alone with a few years before senility and/or death. In such a scenario, I want to be prepared. It would be nice to have a nest egg, sure, but wouldn’t it also be nice to have, as the brochures I would later receive promised I could, a paid-off sort of arrangement that allowed me and my family (and, let’s go crazy here, maybe even their kids, my grandkids[!]) to take vacations from now until forever. I recognize that this is a very, to use the parlance of our times, “first world” sort of concern, but I don’t think it is totally unreasonable. But yet this consideration, this PLANNING!, would be absurd for the vast majority of occupants of this planet, including, it’s worth noting, most of those from the countries on POTUS’s non-travel-ban travel ban.

So barring collapse of civilization, having a place to vacation for the next 100 years for me and my spawn sounds pretty appealing. But I didn’t come 2000 miles to Cabos San Lucas to plunk down 10,000USD cash or credit or to sign a finance contract at 8.9% for essentially a third car payment thank you very much and so I’m trying to put tomorrow’s meeting out of my mind for as long as possible.

After dinner at one of the Resort restaurants that evening, my children having fallen asleep early because of the swimming and the traveling, my wife and I wandered down to investigate the jacuzzi overlooking the ocean by the main pool. There are two Mexican tourists in the pool giving off vague but unconfirmed homosexual vibes with which my wife starts talking in Spanish about the Resort, the best places to snorkel on the Mar de Cortez side of the peninsula (the raw intel: it’s La Paz, but you have to drag your feet through the sand when you walk in the water there are so many rays and if you are lucky you will see a school of them swim by, leaping in unison out of the water in an act for which no scientifically satisfying explanation exists) and the best non-touristy places to eat in town. I pick up phrases here and there and am silent until one of them says: “Nosotros quieremos ir a los Estados Unidos para visitor mis amigos, y para ir al Los Angeles y Vegas, pero no entiendo el problemo con tu president. El Señor Trump. Quantos questan su pared?

Upon discerning the POTUS’s name and un poquito of the gist of this part of the conversation, I decide to mutter “Que pienses a Trump?”, to which one of the guys responds, from what I can surmise from my on-the-fly translation, that Trump is loud, does not have a clear plan for the United States and is dangerous for the rest of the world. Then the other guy says in English “Too much Twitter. Stupid.” Switching back to Spanish, he asked me “Y vos?” Struggling to come up with the Spanish words for a pithy yet expressive response and not wanting to put my wife through a protracted back and forth translation, I settle on “Mierda cabeza” which elicits the desired laugh and after which they switch to another topic in Spanish.

But this exercise unexpectedly elicits a morale quandary: among the possible options that I have as a voting age American upon being questioned by a foreigner about Donald J. Trump, do not all of them in some way involve an explanation? A justification of sorts? An attempt at absolution of my fellow countrymen? And there’s another part to the quandary: among the possible options for me living during this administration, do not all of them involve some form of action? Some attempt to mitigate the shitstorm? The conversation has died down and so now I ask our hot tub companions about their president, “Que pasa con Señor Peña Nieto?” to which they laugh, and one replies, of course, “Mierda cabeza.”

The next morning, I rise before the rest of my travel companions and decide to go for a walk on the beach before our meeting with the poor schlep that is going to waste his time trying to sell me a condo. A leathery, surgically enhanced, sun drenched WASP Pilates addict with a spandex-nylon shirt that says “Calabasas Tennis & Swim” speed walks up from the surf towards the hotel as I head in the opposite direction. Judging by the sweat drenched shirt and hyper-adrenergic eyes, she’s been outside since sunrise, 90 minutes at least and I’m guessing she’s headed up for the gym before it gets crowded and then over the cantina for a banana and skinny vanilla mocha frapp (no whip). The waves are hypnotic, drowning out any sound from the Resort now behind me. I find myself sitting in the sand and just staring at the sea rather than walking, the beach now empty of humans as far as I can see in either direction.

His name is Rodrigo (the poor schlep) and I immediately think of Rodrigo Duterte, the drug cartel-busting president of the Philippines who is currently in the news, but my Rodrigo is wafer thin and looks about 11. His English is not much better than my Spanish and so we struggle to communicate, with both of us talking mostly to my in-laws. He’s obviously B team, because his ostensible supervisor drops in a few times, with his better English and better cologne, Caesar, to see how Rodrigo is treating us and to tell us we are in for a treat this morning. Maybe we would like to go see some of the model condos to get a feel for the craftsmanship and the views Rodrigo says and no thank you I really don’t want to I think but yes sure thank you that would be very nice I say.

We are waiting for one of the carts to come pick us up and watching the goings-on around the main lobby in the late morning. In sales, from Dayton, OSU ’99 B.S. Sociology, OSU ’01 M.B.A, 40–45-ish, bronzed limbs, neck, face and hands, sandals revealing cadaver white feet from below the boat shoe line, BMI estimate 38–40, lit cigar grasped between right incisors, Hilton Head visor, sunglasses (harnessed, hanging from neck), pink polo shirt with B. Brothers flying lamb, khakis, finishes his Corona and, setting it in the ashtray, calls Señor (pronouncing it like the synonym for a 12th grader) and fishes a ciente pesos note from his pocket and indicates his golf clubs to the bellhop who, my wife hastens to inform me, is not one of the many tens of thousands of desperate folks who move their families to live in relative squalor on the outskirts of Cabo, in the no-mans-land desert surrounding the oceanfront resorts which accommodate (in clustered makeshift-looking homes, none greater than one story, that appear to have been haphazardly erected with no forethought as to appearance, durability, fire safety and certainly with no input from any type of competent city planner vis a vis navigability and neighborhood structure; from the air [that is, from the hills leading into the resort at the southern tip of the peninsula] it looks like a refugee encampment) the true worker bees of the tourist industry: the gardeners, the housekeeping staff, the cooks, the masons that build and repair the intricate stonework that surrounds the Resort, the guy who cleans the pool, the food delivery man, the towel pick up and drop off ladies, the plumber whose unenviable job it is to clean gargantuan amounts of sand out of toilets and shower drains, which must be done every day. Rather, this bellhop, whose English is flawless, smile quick, and demeanor upbeat is in fact very likely also the holder of a graduate degree and most definitely the beneficiary of a middle-class bachelor’s education in something like international relations, business and/or hotel management, with a minor or double major in English. In other words, the bellhop who OSU ’99, ’01 threw his clubs at and rewarded with a (not miserly) tip has not really benefitted from the fact that the hotel sprung up here to cater to middle class Americans looking for a quick beach getaway somewhere with agreeable exchange rates — he (the bellhop) had already won the birth lottery and was not from the slums around the Resort and would have enjoyed solid employment prospects even had Americans not given him the privilege to have their golf clubs thrown at them for around 5.88 USD a pop.[Footnote 5]

We are back in the main sales building having toured the incredibly luxurious and insanely furnished model condos, which came in 1, 2 and 3 bedroom or townhome (three stories, with private pool and Jacuzzi) versions. At this point my father-in-law, seated at the other end of the table, takes of his glasses, cleans them, replaces them on his face and then does a quick perimeter scan of the room with a facial expression that is either “I have to take a leak” or “I need some more coffee.”

As Caesar comes back I stand up and pat him on the shoulder while reaching for a hand shake and start mumbling something about needing more time to think it through and not ready to make a decision today. “But I haven’t even shown you the horse,” he says with feigned surprise and then after some more hemming and hawing and plaintive glances to my in-laws and wife who are inspecting ice cubes and ceiling tiles and cuticles, I sit back down and say, trying for friendly banter, “ok, digame el caballo,” which means roughly “tell me the horse” after which Caesar looked at me over his glasses with a resigned surrender to our respective roles in this charade: me the hatchet man to rescue my family’s afternoon, him the closer who needs to suck it up and just deal with the distracted client and my ridiculous attempts at Spanish to try and extract some money from my ass.

Being labeled anti-immigrant, or even immigrant-skeptical (which is a term that does not exist but I would argue could be assigned, if everyone was honest, to a significant portion of the electorate), is something like a racial slur in the United States, or at least has been attempted to be weaponized as one by certain folks on the political left over the past few years. There is a primal kernel that underlies anti-immigrant sentiment that is so glaringly obvious as to be ignored and thus to warrant mentioning: people feel more comfortable around people they know. This is the fundamental basis for the success of genocidal maniacs, gentrification, sports dynasties, large businesses with inbred boards, charter schools. The devil you know and whatever. Attempting extirpation of the (a) emotions associated with immigration so as to leave bare the (b) facts for logical dissection, especially in the current political environment not just between the United States and Mexico but also between Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle and Europe and between open borders, multinational cooperation sorts of folks and those of a drawbridge up, nationalist stripe, is tough. But it bears mentioning one aspect: I submit that it is the contrast, the anticipation of difference by virtue of the closeness to, but controlled separation from, the other, which is titillating. Few people, after all, would actually want to live on deserted islands.

Thus I keep feeling the need to ask whether the Mexican (and here I am going to grossly generalize, in a totally reductive and simplifying and patronizing way the desires and emotions and dreams of all Mexicans into a single faceless tipo) wants me here, in Mexico, at this resort and walking the streets in his town, and conducting commerce in his shops and restaurants, petting his dolphins, snorkeling off his beaches and catching and eating his Mexican fish? I think if given the opportunity to have the benefits of tourism without the tourists, to have the gringo’s dollar without the gringo, he (my nameless Mexican interlocutor) would take it every time.

So then in all fairness I must ask myself the question: if I could have the same experience I have in Mexico without all the Mexicans would I take it? There are many elements in a fair and complete answer to this question that, given my subscription to relatively mainstream western (read: American) Values and Expectations and Life Goals, make my response…uncomfortable. I was raised in the mid-west of the United States to value hard work, education and family — I know this sounds horribly cliché and basically meaningless, but from this I have some desire for my family to be able to take regular vacations. To get in some quality time. I make a decent wage but obviously would like this wage to go as far as possible. I’m treading water here…avoiding the original conceit, which was Mexico (or the 2017-over-the-top-Mexico-resort experience) without the Mexicans. There’s something else there. I like the fact that my children can experience a foreign country and — here it is — hear the language their grandparents speak, spoken conversationally. That’s better. For this I definitely need Mexicans, and Mexican culture, which I personally find hard to separate from the Americanized (read: bastardized) versions one experiences where I live in southern California — and I’m not just talking about Taco Bell here, I mean the way Mexico is associated with tequila and mariachi and futbol and frijoles — but which my Latino friends all tell me is layered and ancient and beautiful. I want my children to learn real Mexican culture, and if some rubs off on me, all the better.

But there’s still one more thing: what if my children were half, say, British or German or Japanese, also countries with textured culture and history. Would a vacation in London or Berlin or Tokyo hold the same kind of…god damn it I will just come out and say it…chance to feel like a cultural imperialist that going to Mexico does? I do not choose to go to Mexico for the Mexicans, nor do I choose to go there to act like a modern-day viceroy, but certainly some confluence of having currency and language advantages that are catered to by a genuinely gracious population of warmhearted people (let’s be really honest here and clarify that Mexicans are among the nicest, most welcoming people you will ever meet anywhere on earth and this [their kindness and generosity] has absolutely nothing to do with their proximity to the United States) together with terrific beaches makes Mexico an obvious vacation spot that, as all the testimonials in the brochures pushed on us testify “keep you coming back every year.”

My family has gone to stand in line to sign up for the touristy events that our prior two and a half hours with Rodrigo y Caesar had earned us. They, my relations, have relief and mild excitement about them, both for the dolphin encounter and sunset cruise they are signing up for for later in the week (which did in fact turn out to be memorable and worthy of many millions of bytes dedicated to JPEG storage) but also for the rest of the afternoon, as we are now free to head back to the main pool and drink like spring breakers (in fact there now seems to be a mandate to do so, given the 600USD bar credit we earned, coupled with the fact my in-laws are teetotal) and just plain enjoy the afternoon, having earned it, by sitting through a seminar for a property we had no worldly intention of buying but being cordial and feigning interest and going through all the appointed back and forths of good faith negotiation. And I am thinking of the poor schmucks who do end up signing on the dotted line, or the dotted lines, because there’s surely a ton of associated paperwork and a couple extra hours once you pull the trigger, and at that point you have eaten up a whole day of your vacation, you are ready for another meal, you spent 10–20,000USD that you weren’t planning to spend at the beginning of your trip and now you don’t have the energy and certainly not the patience and most definitely not the giddy relief that my family and I felt upon leaving the sales area and heading out into the UV.

Caesar sees me outside sitting with my son after the deal is over and we are just to civilians again. He almost walks past and then hesitates, saying with genuine lightness, “Just starting your week?” Yes, I tell him, and ask with a smile, but not with undue probing, about the grown son he mentioned who now lives in Canada. “Good kid,” he says, “as least I did something right,” and then, sensing my family approaching down the sidewalk, he completes our interaction with a resigned grin of his own and moves along.

Right. So what did I do in the end? Option 5. Nothing. I just let the seat fall. I pissed all over everything. It was horror show.

Footnotes

[1] Having paid my 85 USD online a few months back and arrived 5 minutes early later that week at 06:55 for my scheduled in-person interview next to baggage claim in Terminal 4 of Los Angeles International Airport, meeting with a nameless TSA employee who arrived at 07:10 and complained about the traffic on the 405 while literally rubber stamping my application after swiping my debit card, I was now labeled as someone-unlikely-to-try-and-blow-shit-up-or-hijack-it and thus can cut to the front of the line at most domestic airports. I am up for renewal in 5 years, 2022, when I will have to fork over another 85 greenbacks to retain these cutting in line and not taking off shoes and laptops staying in bags rights. When traveling with my family, they are helpfully extended identical boarding privileges, sans payment and sans LAX interview.

[2] Although, as I would learn from the Resort’s night shift lifeguard who shined a friendly but not unserious high beam at me as I approached the water later that night around midnight, several tourists die every month getting swept out to sea and/or pummeled by the waves not 50 feet from shore and/or getting eaten by one of the many species of ravenous Carcharodon that troll the southern tip of the peninsula. This is generally not made public by the Resort or its local competitors, so this is why most Americans don’t know about it when they are booking on Air BnB or through the timeshare. I got it, I told him, I’m staying out of the water.

[3] Emotional quotient; a term used in business and academia to describe a potential hire’s ability to play nicely in the sandbox.

[4] Indeed the servers are all, without exception, male and dark skinned and, obviously, Mexican, completely covered in the same modest, clean, pressed, beige jumpsuit with the Resort and a koi fish embroidered on the lapel worn by all employees of the Resort. Notwithstanding the boys from San Diego and some other obvious spring break type revelers, this is not a Vegas pool, where the waitresses all wear G strings and can bench 180 and where the debauch seems to be pumped in through the ventilation.

[5] The incongruence is stark: it is puzzling to find a working age Caucasian man with no obvious behavioral and/or grooming eccentricities working at the bar in the LAX United terminal. This is strange in southern California, as strange as it would be to see such a person running a lawn care business or managing a fast food restaurant.

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