Sandwiches, Extinct Creatures, Luggage, Guns and Rubber Gloves.

Chappers and I went off-piste this week, as far as any of our plans were concerned. I last mentioned I was sat in Monterrey airport, waiting to go back to Houston, and thence I knew not where.
I think we strayed onto the black-run, and nearly went skiing off a cliff (metaphorically speaking still).

We left much of our stuff locked in the Dodge Ram in the car park, and took enough clothing for a couple of days, our toothbrushes, laptop, and essential wires for phones etc. Eventually we boarded our flight, and a while later landed in Houston. We then took another flight up to Philadelphia - the city of brotherly love.

I was strung along all day as to what was going on, and was rather bored to be honest. Chappers hired another car, and we decided we'd see what we could see around the area, but there wasn't much really outside the city so it just sat in the hotel car park. I took in the Liberty Bell and a few of the other must-see sights, then went to enjoy consuming a Philadelphia cheese-steak sandwich from the city for which it was named. In fact I consumed two, one after the other. One from "Pat's King of Steaks" and "Geno's Steaks", which are on opposite sides of the street from one another, and decades-old rivals. I was so full I felt ill, and I knew I'd be shitting breeze-blocks the next day but I didn't care. It had to be done! In the afternoon I met Chappers as we had agreed, from which point we took a taxi from our hotel up to Citizens Bank Park, for game three of the World Series! Chappers' furtive telephone activities in a Mexican gas station toilet had apparently been taking an offer on some complimentary tickets for the games in Philly. I'm a closet baseball fan, and usually look for the Atlanta Braves results when I remember (I had a t-shirt with the logo on it when I was a kid, so I became a fan), and even watch the odd game on Channel Five at home. So we waited in line through the drizzle, got to our seats, and it absolutely pissed down. The game was delayed, I was half drenched, and spent the waiting time eating more cheese-steak, drinking beer (well, that's what the stand said it was - it was more like shandy), and facebooking from my phone. When the game did eventually begin, the anthem was sung by a gorgeous looking little thing called Taylor Swift (see here on YouTube). A lovely and moving rendition. There was a HUGE flag being held out across the field by dozens of veterans, including some injured and disabled in combat. I have to admit I shed a tear with the pure emotion of the moment. The atmosphere of pride was tangible. The game itself was okay, not too exciting. It dragged on for ever, and I was bored because I was so cold and wet, I had sobered up, and it was gone 2am by the time the game was over and we could get near a taxi. Furthermore, I was relieved to finally get to the safety of my hotel room, since I had been flirted with by a woman who I can only describe as a woolly mammoth, from the top of the 4th inning until the end of the game. She was at least 6'3" tall and 8'8" around, had enough stubble to have made 1990s George Michael jealous, and you could smell the foundation and other make-up used to mask it all from ten yards away. That awful sensation of breathing in powder all night will live with me for a long time. There was a heaving noise when she breathed too which made me constantly on edge that she was about to have a massive asthma attack, or worse. Despite this ogrish lack of any attractiveness she seemed to be under the impression that she devastatingly beautiful and sexy. Several times she leaned to whisper sweet nothings in my ear - nearly breaking my shoulder each time, sharing her horrid breath that I can only describe as peanut, eucalyptus, and tobacco. Through the course of the evening she told me (amongst other things) that:
1) Momma likes yew-roe-peeeens,
2) She 'got a whole lotta back' - which I traditionally understood to mean a curvaceous backside not an arse the size of Arkansas,
3) She gives the sweetest titty-fuck in Philly,
4) No hole is off limits.
When the game was over, I made a sharpish exit, prodding Chappers to move faster, but exiting a sports stadium is never a rapid event. She shambled out of the stadium, and milled along through the crowd right behind me. The smell of her wheezing breath stabbed warmly around my neck every couple of seconds as she panted to keep up the slow pace. The few times she pressed her bosom into my back (no doubting the intent) she nearly hurled me off my feet into the people ahead of me. When eventually I managed to get a cab, to my horror she had shoved Chappers away and she fell into it instead. Adopting a sultry voice, she used every ounce of seductiveness in her sizeable body she urged me to take her back to my place and “fuck her folds”. I wish I could report some humorous and cutting response fell from my lips, but I was so shocked and horrified I simply blurted "no thanks!" before jumping out and running down the line of cabs to hide behind the first thing that looked solid enough to protect me. I like many curvy girls and even have a secret Dawn French fetish, but boning this brontosaurus would have taken things to an all new epic level of specialism.

The next day (or technically later the same day) I managed to visit Independence Hall, but walked away from the US mint tour since they don't allow phones inside and had nowhere to leave them. I did the Pat's and Geno's thing again, and once more went to the ball game. Sunday was thankfully a dry night, and so I knew it would be more enjoyable, so long as I didn't once more encounter the woman from the night before. The anthem was a completely different experience. Pattie Labelle sang, and it was painful. It was screechy and pitchy, and the speakers in the stadium just weren't designed with such punishment in mind. There were three kids with their dad in front of me, and one of them looked absolutely terrified, while another cried. There were a couple of people booing, and the guy to my left said it was as bad as Roseanne Barr who apparently sang at a game about 20 years ago. All I know is that I thought it was bloody awful and she should be embarrassed. I wanted to put a YouTube link up but it appears all evidence of it ever happening have been covered up by the Men in Black. I can only imagine the few thousand who clapped and cheered were either tone deaf, enjoy the sound of pigs squealing, or were paid in advance by Major League Baseball to pretend they enjoyed it. Other than that, it was an enjoyable night.

However enjoyable Sunday had been at Citizens Bank Park, we decided that on Monday we would forego the tickets for the final night and headed up to NYC instead. We checked out that night, and took a night drive up to the Big Apple in the hire car. Seeing that heaving mass of lights grow on the horizon is quite an experience!
Our flights back to Mexico were due to leave Philly at half past five in the evening so we needed to leave NYC no later than 1pm to have a fair chance of making it on time. We enjoyed a morning wandering around and shopping for toys and gadgets, including a new Macbook Air that set me back $2500, and filled a new suitcase with new clothes. Guessing parcel post is probably really cheap in Mexico, I had made my mind up to bundle the suitcase up in Monterrey and post it to a friend back home so I'd have a new wardrobe on my return. We had a good lunch in a sushi restaurant on 33rd street then it was back in the car for a madcap drive back to Philly. We made it with seconds to spare. The same swap at Houston going back as coming out, and we were in Monterrey before midnight local time. Everything had gone smoothly and according to plan. Result!

Except it then began to fall apart.

Our luggage didn't arrive on the carousel. Not on the first lap, second, or indeed the third. Or the one hundred and third. Four hours later, and various complaints to various night managers and still we didn't have our belongings. Nine hours passed and still nothing. Day broke, and we spent the whole of Tuesday chasing our tails at the airport, trying to find a manager who gave a damn. We took it in turns to grab a few hours sleep in the Dodge (still in the car park), and eventually at 9pm Tuesday we were told our luggage had been found. In San Diego. It was going to arrive via LAX and Houston, around midday Wednesday. It duly arrived, late, at 6pm. Frustratingly we had to be back in Houston to return the car by 5pm Friday. We couldn't extend the rental agreement as it was already scheduled for another customer who had specifically requested a large flatbed pick-up, and so we would only have chance to see the same bits of Mexico we had already seen, i.e. the roads between the airport and the border. It was too late to find a hotel in the city, so I suggested we strike out for the US, and kip in the car. The back seat is vast, and the front seats ridiculously comfortable so it would be more than adequate. Off we went, reaching Laredo at a shade before midnight. We decided the safest place to park up and sleep would be the airport, so we pulled up and slept until daybreak.

Thursday was beautiful as the sun rose over the horizon, the USA was a matter of miles away, and we were looking forward to a steady cruise over the border, to San Antonio, and then back to Houston. Nothing could be finer! Mexico had been a bit of a disaster but we were heading back to a great country with lovely people, and where we both have a feeling of somehow being ‘at home’. We crossed the city, and half way across the Rio Grande we joined the early queue to cross the border at the huge fan-shaped crossing point. Eventually it was our turn. Passports and forms out, documents at the ready, sunglasses off as a matter of politeness. We weren't waved through. The officer instead moved his radio closer to his ear to listen to the squawking being garbled to him. He looked at us, stepped back a few paces to look at our registration (or rather license) plate, and then at our passports. He squawked back into the black box on his shoulder, and moved his free hand to his holster. Chappers and I looked at him, at each other, then back to him. It was dawning on us that all may not be well. My foot twitched toward the accelerator, apparently tempted to make a surge for freedom. Fortunately my right hand is a little bit cleverer and headed off this idiocy by grabbing the keys, and turning off the ignition. A whole hour-long minute later, we were waved to pull forward and to one side. A polite invitation was extended to exit the vehicle and place our hands on the bonnet (well, the nice man with a gun said ‘hood’, but I didn't feel it would be appropriate given the balance of power that I should take the opportunity to re-educate him). We were patted down for whatever it was we might be carrying that we shouldn't be, and removed to separate interview rooms. After an hour I was 'mirandized', advised I was under arrest for grand theft auto, and offered access to a free lawyer, to which I agreed. I didn’t need to use my phone call since there was nobody to ring other than Chappers who I could only assume was in another room nearby. Whilst waiting for my lawyer to arrive I had my shoelaces and belt removed, and was subjected to a cavity search for illegal substances and weaponry by a man built like Johnny Vegas after swallowing his identical twin, and sporting the worst hair cut since Billy Ray Cyrus. I'm not sure exactly what type of weaponry I could safely conceal in my rectum, but apparently it's possible I could have been concealing something dangerous other than the previous night's gassy remains up there, with which I could try to kill either myself or an American hero in uniform. Three hours later a lawyer arrived, who told me she was not in fact provided by the government, but was provided by my 'travelling companion' - Chappers to the rescue again! It was finally explained to me what the hell was going on. When we returned the hire car in Philly, the company (the same as hired the Dodge to us) noted we had another car outstanding to us in Texas. They asked Chappers at the time if we had returned the Dodge, and he explained it was in Monterrey and we would be returning it on schedule to Houston, and we had simply taken a mid-vacation trip to Pennsylvania but everything was fine. Despite this, the Dodge was reported stolen the next morning by the office in Houston, by which time we were in Mexico. The crossing points were put on alert for our rather distinctive vehicle, and were to arrest us if and when we showed up. Apparently we weren't supposed to take the car over international borders (although we specifically stated that this was our intention when we hired it).
To cut a long and possibly tedious tale short, the lawyer spoke lots of legalese back and forth with the border people and later on a representative of the hire company who showed up and was sat in a third room. I understood little of it and to be frank my mind was elsewhere, quite perplexed at the whole affair and in indignation at the search that had taken place a few hours earlier, so I just did as I was told and stayed quiet while my lawyer did all the talking. She made a hell of a lot of phone calls, and ran in and out of the interview room to speak with a colleague who was with Chappers. Shortly before 9pm I was given back my shoelaces and belt, and told that there were no longer any charges to answer to. The border chaps led me to a room where I was reunited with Chappers, and presented with a stack of belongings belonging to the pair of us. The contents of all our bags, the new suitcase, leathers, helmets etc were spilled across the small office. Our lawyers entered soon after, at which point they ran us through exactly what had happened, why, and how they had sorted things out. My head was spinning and I still felt sick from having been anally fisted by a morbidly obese mulleted goon looking for a kalashnikov or perhaps some field artillery, and so I pretty much switched off. I did however understand we were free to go, but the Dodge was to remain in the custody of the hire firm's lawyers in Laredo, and the agreement was terminated. So we had all our stuff and no means of transporting it. Great.
The lawyer who had represented me offered us both space on the huge couch in her den for the night, seeing as it was rather late to find accommodation in a hotel.

And so I spent last night curled up on the sofa, spaced out in shock at the day's events. This morning we found a hotel and I've spent all day holed up watching TV and eating junk food. I spoke to Chappers a few hours ago to confirm I'm alive and okay, but to be honest I feel like shit and like the whole trip has been ruined. I just feel like going home now. Typing this would, I thought, be cathartic but I feel no better now than I did a couple of hours ago when I started. Two bottles of wine and another trolley of room service food currently on its way up might go some way to helping my head rearrange my thoughts, and perhaps I'll feel better - though I suspect it may be some time until that feeling of wellness extends to my arse, which still feels like there's a brick shoved up it sideways.

Let us see what Saturday brings. Good night.