Cancun Crazy Part 1 (of many)

Dear lovely loyal readers (if any of you are still out there),

Thank you for your patience....I know I have abused you with the silence. See, the truth is I have actually had a lot of hilarious stories come about over the past few weeks. However, I think I really need a secret blog because if I were to really write my hilarious stories to the public with no discreetness, I'd probably offend a lot of people out there. But I'm sorry, people in the real world are just too funny, especially when you realize they are being serious about themselves :)

Okay, so back to people that I can make fun of - myself and my friends. I just got back from a much needed and amazing beach vacation in Cancun, Mexico. I feel so relaxed! As I peel another layer of skin off of my nose, I am reminiscing about the many many hilarious things I can write about (how's that for a great mental picture). I have realized that I am going to have to break this trip up into many pieces. Many, many dysfunctional hilarious tequila soaked blog pieces (actually unusual fact about this trip is that I really didn't feel even buzzed hardly at all).

But first, to put you in the mood, lets perform an exercise. Imagine yourself in a dark room. Now imagine a computer in front of you filled with rows and rows of tiny numbers in excel. Imagine that you are not allowed to leave this room, or eat, or use the bathroom until you carefully analyze every single number in that excel document. Imagine this is happening every day over and over again for months.

Then imagine one day, out of nowhere, someone takes you out of that room and brings you to this:

Is this heaven? Did I die while doing accounting? No, it's real live vacation!!! Sweet sweet glorious revenge!!! (okay this demonstration was exaggerated for sensational effect, but you get the picture)

Okay, to tell Cancun right, let's start from the beginning.

Day 1:

To say the first day was eventful would not do it justice. The first day in itself could take multiple blog posts, but I will do my best to not keep you in suspense.

7am: Our day starts at 7am where I promptly pick up Cilla to venture towards the airport. Cilla, who had gotten off work at 3am that day (yes that's right, 3am) and had not seen the outside world in a few days was very startled to find that it was cold outside. We pack up the car and head out to DFW airport. On the way we pass Texas Stadium without realizing that this will be the last time we see it since it will be demolished while we are in Cancun.

Cilla fills me in on what is going on with our friend Jessica, who is also traveling to Cancun from Chicago via connecting flight in Mexico City. Apparently Jessica's morning starts something like this (the texts have been paraphrased to the best of my memory):

"$#@%$ (insert cure words because I imagine she is freaking out) I'm running late, I'm about to miss my flight, I really might not make it! "

10 minutes later....

"made it past security, I'm at my gate, and I also got something to eat!" I think she also tried to insert a joke here which just makes me laugh just thinking about it. I don't think either of us were amused with the quick change in blood pressure we just felt.

Oh Jessica....... :)

Nonetheless, Cilla and I arrive at the airport. We park, get a great spot, they give us free water bottles, and the shuttle runs smoothly (unlike that time I missed my flight in Chicago). We check in and are surprised to be reminded that we get to check in luggage for free for international flights! Very exciting news. Everything is going so smoothly that I am completely anticipating something bad happening after this point. There had to be a catch somewhere.

We get on the plane and are surprised to find a couple in our seats. Ah hah! I'm thinking I've finally found the bad luck to balance out all the good we've had so far on our trip. Perhaps they've overbooked the flight? Perhaps there was some crazy glitch and all four of us have the same seat assignments? Perhaps we are on the wrong flight and were sold fake tickets by some scam? Any experienced traveler knows that there is never a smooth trip.

NOPE, turns out just a couple of morons decided to sit in our seats. I didn't think of that one. It turns out the couple (which consisted of a woman who looked much too old to be with the man next to her who literally looked like an overgrown kid) had booked seats on different rows, one in our row and one in the row ahead. The woman tries to pass it off that she had let her man take care of all of the booking and she just had no idea that he had screwed up the seating. Yeah right, anyone could tell that the man wasn't even smart enough to figure out a pay phone. (In his defense though to my own insult, I think pay phones are really confusing).

Regardless, I suggest a solution. We'd simply check with the other person who is originally booked to sit in between all of us and ask if they would not mind letting us all shuffle around to our preferred spots. Apparently this was too much for the over sized kid to understand. Trust me dude, I'm brilliant. Long story short, it worked out and Cilla and I even got a three person row to ourselves. Okay, everything is still going smoothly, surely something must go wrong soon.

Well, a few more hiccups occur along the way. There's an insanely annoying bathroom line scenario that really would be a waste of your time to explain...but it definitely involved a mother/wife with the greatest patience I have ever witnessed as well as my own bladder surpassing limits I did not know it was capable of as well as one of the slowest stewardesses I have ever encountered. You put those elements together.

Alas, we finally arrive at the Hilton resort, escape some more minor issues and finally get the glorious pleasure of seeing our fabulous room with the fabulous beach and the fabulous pool.

Here is the beach view from our room

and the amazing infinite pool with the beach behind it

and the amazing coconut drink (which hardly had any alcohol for Fun Bobby to detect)

Aaaaah, it's 1pm and we are sitting here in what seems to be heaven. Cilla is shouting out the words "I'm on vacation! I'm on vacation!" every few minutes and the light lackadaisical sound of the ocean waves fill in the background. I'm also trying to drown out the Mexican disco beach music that is playing on repeat in the background. It's 1pm, and Jessica will be here in only 3.5 hours. Life is good. Everything is going as planned.

We enjoy the rest of the afternoon soaking in the sun. Turning ourselves over on our lawn chairs like we are grilling a cheese sandwich. Then, sometime between 4 and 5 we get a text message from Jessica:

"I am going to be an hour or so late, I'm being stopped for not going through immigration and they are taking me to see a doctor outside the airport. Joe don't worry!!"

Ummmm........ ummmmm....... ummmmm.....

If anyone knows me they can probably literally see the panic racing through my head. What was this cryptic message. We didn't know what to make of it! How can she not have gone through immigration in Mexico City? Why is she going to see a doctor? Who is she with? Is she okay? Is she panicking? WHAT DO WE DO?? There were so many questions running through our heads.

Well, one thing's for sure- we knew we couldn't just sit there by the pool while our friend was in trouble. We go back to our room, start showering and getting ready for dinner. Jessica said she would be there in about an hour, so at least we can get ready so that we are not in the way when she gets in. We stumble around blindly, getting ready for dinner aimlessly. Meanwhile Cilla is also trying to communicate with Jessica to get more information out of her, but every message is more and more confusing and the hours are quickly passing by.

One message lets us know she is in another police station in Cancun. Another message lets us know that they have taken her to yet another one in the hotel zone to speak to an ethics committee. We can't understand why she was even removed from the airport to begin with. We don't understand what an ethics committee has to do with it. And all the while she is trying to crack jokes....either to comfort us or maybe herself. Whatever the reason, her comedic effect is really not working in this situation! She keeps telling us it will only be an hour or so more while she finishes up paperwork but the hours keep passing by. It's starting to get dark and her messages are becoming less and less frequent. She's starting to get unresponsive and we don't know if it is because she is trying to conserve the international text messaging expenses because she is in the clear or if something has really happened to her.

We wander around the hotel, guilty for not only having the luxury of companionship in this foreign country but also for being in a nice place when we are only imagining Jessica might be in much worse conditions. This is Jessica:


One of the sweetest and most innocent people I know. I don't know how she has gotten herself in this situation but she's in it and she's all alone in a foreign country and we have no idea what kind of people she is with.

Jessica keeps reassuring us that everything is going just fine, but we have little information to go with. She tells us she is going to be released from the airport very soon and that we should start making dinner reservations. We decide we need a drink instead.

We sit down at the hotel bar to grab a drink. A waiter, which turns out to the be the bartender....oh wait, excuse me, he is actually a professional mixologist, comes to our table almost instantly. He shows us the menu, but instantly tosses it aside as if it's as boring to him as the WSJ must be and says that he can make us anything we like....and if we really trust him he will make something perfect and if we don't like it, he'll make our usual drink for free, "It's a deal" he keeps saying. We aren't particularly sold on his concept being our first day in the land of crazy tequila, but he comes around about 5 times and finally breaks us down.

Bernie comes back with our drinks which actually turn out to be amazing. He also is highly entertaining and quite the smooth talker. We are really enjoying his conversation and it is helping us take our minds off of Jessica. It's almost 7 now and we haven't heard from her in about an hour or so even though Cilla asked her if everything was alright. I ask Cilla what the last thing Jessica said was and Cilla reminds me that she has a habit of deleting everything on her phone LOL. That was our last piece of evidence inside Jessica's world! We are starting to panic again, and think of plans of action. We turn to Bernie for help on this unusual matter. Cilla wants to go to the police station. I want to call the US Embassy. Cilla thinks if Jessica is still missing that Bernie will help us out once he gets off work. I remind her that he might not be our new bff since he is working for tips (story about that later too). The plans are getting wilder and wilder by the minute.

We send Bernie off to get a number for the US Embassy. Meanwhile we try to figure out when to start really panicking about Jessica.....

Stay tuned to see what happens in Cancun!!