WTF or Aww? You decide

When I was trying to come up with a title for this post there was nothing else in my mind but WTF. I was trying my best to come up with something witty and funny and short that would embody the feeling of the post, but there is nothing in my mind except for a glaring WHAT THE FUCK. That’s it, nothing more.

DH, sent me this link this morning:

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/15202-fans-bring-cadaver-to-colombian-soccer-match.html

I think he secretly enjoys finding weird shit that happens in either Venezuela or Colombia so he can ask me about it and feel like he married some exotic woman from a crazy faraway land.

When I read the article my first reaction was “ew” and laugh hysterically because as surprising and bizarre and unexplainable the situation was, it still completely plausible. Part of me wasn’t really that shocked. What does that say about me and about my people in Colombia? I am not sure.

If you have problems opening the link, let me summarize what the article is about:

Seventeen year old Christopher (DH is surely disappointed by the “regular” name) was gunned down in his neighborhood while he was playing football (soccer for my gringo friends) and his friends, took his body (coffin and all) from the funeral home and “paraded” it to a game in the stadium for the team he rooted for. Christopher belonged to a fan club of the Cucuta Deportivo team known as the Barra del Indio (a “barra” is a group of fans) and it was friends in that group that took him to the game. So his body could witness the victory? Not really since after further research I found out the teams tied and since there was a cadaver in the stadium the score stopped being so important to those who were there.

Interestingly enough the “barras” are not allowed in the stadium because they are the Colombian version of Hooligans. They break shit; they get into fights, shoot people when their team loses, etc. This time, however, the barra was allowed into the stadium. Apparently all they had to do all along to gain entrance was to bring a body.

I can only imagine how the conversation went at the entrance of the stadium…

What explanation can there really be for this? Was it the grief? Was it the last wish of the deceased? Or are my people simply nuts?

I am going to go with a little bit of all three.

I am sure for the average American bringing a body to a stadium is just crazy, hell it sounds crazy to me and I am Colombian! But I guess is the Colombian in me, that isn’t totally taken over by American pragmatism, which can pause for a moment and find the situation almost poetic. When one stops to think about it, if they knew the guy, if the friends knew how much he loved soccer, and he died playing soccer, what a better way to honor his memory than to bring his body to the stadium? I am sure nobody would’ve batted an eye if it had been ashes. I think the most shocking part; the part difficult to get over the part that made me go “ew” is that his whole body, bullet riddled and all, ready to be buried was there, inside that coffin, being carted around by his friends like a Colombian version of a Weekend at Bernies.

What if he had fallen out? Did they stop to think about the consequences? Did they take a moment to consider the logistics of it all? I doubt it. Latin Americans are not really worried about such things. Where was his family? His mother? What were they thinking?

Don’t even get me started on how the sheer tragedy of the death of a seventeen year old is being overlooked because his body being paraded in a stadium makes a better story. Sadly deaths like those are oh so common in that and many other areas of my country.

I guess there is enough Hispanic romanticism and impracticality in me to read the article, and after getting over the shock, find the situation epically poetic.

In the end I am nothing if not pragmatic, not because of my time in the U.S. but because that is my number one personality trait. And the pragmatic part of me, cannot say anything else, but WTF?

Here’s a little video for those inclined to watch it live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh79Miik-Cg&feature=player_embedded

DIRTY MINDS THINK ALIKE

It never ceases to amaze me just how incredibly inappropriate Hispanic people are, sometimes I forget or simply don’t notice because I am so used to it, but there is nothing like having dinner with a bunch of Colombians, Venezuelans, Chileans and Mexicans for the combination to be too much for all our dirty tendencies.

DH and I were enjoying a delicious night of BBQ and Karaoke, or maybe I should say I was being tortured by the smell of delicious cow murder while he ate (5 months 21 days of vegetarianism and counting!) when the hosts of our dinner started passing along an array of penis shaped paraphernalia. From an eight inch penis-shaped flute (you blow at the head of course) very accurate with balls and all and another one of a mustachioed guy seating on a toilet with his pants around his ankle and with a ecstatic look on his face while his hand wrapped around an engorged penis that was bigger than he was. Don’t ask me why a host would do that. Is one of those Hispanic mysteries nobody has an answer to, right up there with what’s in a morcilla (no longer a mystery and wish I never knew) and why we can’t help it but be loud.

While I made do with rice, and salad and bread and all those around me feasted on the mouthwatering victims of murder I thought about how weird it was for people to bring out those pieces of porny, tacky sexual art. Then I realized I have lost my edge. I have been surrounded by that inappropriate shit all my life and never before made me blink an eye.

I remember having lunch at my aunt’s house in Colombia and across her dinner table she had a painting of a woman who seems to be either touching herself or someone else is touching her, and another of two lovers that seem to have escaped from a porn version of Cirque du Soleil. The thing is the strokes of the brush in the paintings are so delicate and sometimes not quite there and you never know if you are really seeing what you think you are seeing or if it is in fact blatantly sexual art.

The result is that you spent the 45 minutes of dinner at times staring at the painting and other’s trying not to stare while you pretend to be eating and incredibly uncomfortable that your hosts and owners of the painting is your family and the figure sticks hanging in the wall are getting it on and feeling oddly hot and bothered at THE MOST inappropriate time. That same family member also served their morning coffee on boob-shaped cups and you had to drink from the nipple, which I didn’t really considered weird when I was growing up but now that I have been here for 8 years I find rather odd. The prudishness here is contagious!

As I passed along the clay guy with the huge schlong and manic look in his eyes to DH I expected him to be somewhat chagrined at what I viewed as another weird thing we do that he has to get used to and I laughed and said: “I can’t imagine passing this along at dinner with your family” since his family is fairly conservative. I expected him to laugh and enjoy the “art” I didn’t expect for him to ask loudly and in front of all the natural born hecklers I hang out with (who by the way are all over 40, married and with children) for me to blow on the head of the “flute” and make some music. Neither did I expect him to say “You have more practice than me” in front of all of them (my mom included) when I told him “Why don’t You blow?”.

All I can conclude in that he has been thoroughly and completely corrupted and that he will no longer be embarrassed by anything.

Which considering my family and friends it’s a blessing.

THE INEXORABLE PULL OF RESPONSIBILITY

I wish I had coined the phrase since it seems to describe my very existence. I am, it seems, trapped by a sucking, drowning, black-hole of responsibility. There are, I know, people who seem free of such a crippling emotion, because that is what responsibility is, an emotion. A feeling in the pit of your stomach, in the center of your heart that makes one do things we don’t want to do, but we do nonetheless because it is expected, because one has to.

Girls always dream of being Lizzie and holding out for love, for passion, for someone who is going to understand one’s quirks in personality. Girls dream of being Lizzie and being brave and holding out for Mr. Darcy, but I am afraid I would have never been a Lizzie Bennett and that I am destined to be a Fanny Price, my most hated of Austen’s heroines.

I am afraid that my sense of responsibility keeps me from doing what I dream of doing and sending everyone to hell and being utterly selfish and caring only about what I want and what I need and what I expect of life. But I am, no matter how hard I try, going ‘round and ‘round doing what I have to do.

I would’ve married Mr. Collins. I would’ve married a totally unsuitable person to save my family from destitution. I would have had sex and bore him children and endured the attentions of Lady Catherine de Burgh simply because it was expected of me.

There is no rebellion in me, no overwhelming passion, because responsibility shadows, swallows, overwhelms everything else. I am doomed to be responsible. I am doomed to swallow my wants and do what needs to be done. Why do I have to? Why can’t I just ignore everything that needs to be done and simply be? Is it my lot in life to take care of what needs to be taken care of disregarding completely the hungers in my soul that need to be fed?

I wish I was more ambitious. Ambitious enough that only my interest seemed to matter, but my ambitions are simple: Health for those I love, to be loved, a house of my own, a job that I like and occasional travels that show me the world out there. I don’t wish for riches and grandeur, I don’t crave fame and fortune. I work for a multibillionaire and I know that money does not necessarily mean happiness. I can’t help but think that if I wanted it more, wished for it more, ignored others more I could have everything I wanted.

Sometimes I want to run away from everything, expectations, family, friends… and myself. Let’s combine those two and really put together what I want to run away from: Family expectations.

Sometimes I wish I was more like my brother, who has no regard for anyone but himself. No regard but what he wants. Sometimes I wish I could grab my credit card and disappear into oblivion in a small town in the middle of nowhere U.S. and work at some dinner where my name is not my name and I can spend my days doing something little and meaningful and write and get up knowing that I will write some more and do something with my days that does not include disappearing in anonymity in an office, doing nothing worth wile and being invisible.

I know the feeling will disappear and tomorrow I will get up and do what is expected. Dry, cold, reliable, and responsible Melissa, doing what needs to be done, no matter what. But right now I want to be more, do more.

I know it’s silly. I get to the end of this post and I realize how many times I have said in the past, “With privilege comes responsibility” and I am oh so privileged with a big family. I just wish there was someone to share those big responsibility’s with.

They feel so heavy sometimes.

NOVENAS, ANOTHER HISPANIC MYSTERY

After three years together and almost one year of wedded bliss, Dear Husband thought he had seen it all, the parties, the talking too loud, the drama, the dancing and the weird food (morcilla, cow’s stomach, tongue, etc).

Little did he know that there was still more to come. To be honest I thought also there were no more cultural differences to be introduced to him, no more shocking family secrets, or customs I had to explain. I hadn’t taken into account, however, the ever expanding gap between his religion and mine.

Now, neither Dear Husband, nor I are religious. He was raised under the very strict codes of the Assemblies of God (whatever that is) and I was raised very leniently under Catholic dogma. That said however, our views of religion are utterly different.

I knew when I was little that not everybody was Catholic. That there were other religions out there that did not include partaking in communion, rosary praying or even Jesus for that matter. But I never saw my Catholic rites as something mysterious, hard to understand and almost mystical.

After Alfonso’s Death last Sunday my mom (a practicing Catholic) decided to offer his soul a Novena. For those of you who aren’t Catholic and didn’t grow up as I did partaking in endless rituals, a Novena means “Ninth” and is nine days of offered prayers. Usually they are done during Christmas time and others when there is a death and the friends and family offer nine consecutive days or nights of praying rosaries for the soul of the deceased to help him or her find the light towards his/her maker.

I have prayed many, and I mean MANY rosaries in my life. One cannot go through five years of Catholic School education without praying some rosaries. Again for those unfamiliar a rosary is a chain of praying beads that one follows bead by bead with “Our Father” several “Hail Mary” and a “Glory be the Father”. There are five “mysteries” in a rosary (Don’t ask me why they call them mysteries) but it simply means five sets of praying per rosary with one “Our Father” ten “Hail Mary” and one “Glory be the Father” per set.

Obviously the ritual is very repetitive but I always found oddly soothing. There is something about saying the same words over and over again with a group of people that eases something inside. Dear Husband, since he has never partaken in a rosary praying was agog at our “chanting” and my sister’s Patty’s husband (another American) was also utterly confused.

At the end of the first night of praying and on our way home, DH asked me what exactly the purpose of a rosary was. I tried to explain that it was a sort of guide to the soul for the afterlife and he didn’t seem to understand why our praying would make a difference over the direction of Alfonso’s soul since he, according to Catholic beliefs, would be judged by his actions in life and a meeting of friends and family should hardly make a difference to God. Now, DH was raised to believe that if you believe in Christ then you are immediately saved. So according to what he has been taught, Alfonso’s actions in life or our praying for nine days wouldn’t make a difference since Alfonso was a believer in Christ and therefore, good to go. I tried, my best, to explain that Catholics believe that believing in Christ sometimes is not enough to be saved and the things you do (the good and bad) in life are what will determine your soul’s destination after death. I tried to explain the relatives left behind during the Novena, act as advocates of his soul, showing God that even after death we cared for Alfonso and the prayers work as a statement, almost like a witness or lawyer, of what we think of Alfonso’s soul’s worthiness.

Then we shot off to talk about Purgatory and why Baptism is important and why in the world we have to confess our sins to a priest and all those other Catholic rituals that make sense to no one else but us who learned it.

In the end it doesn’t really matter since neither of us truly gives a damn about each other’s religion. It is not a point in common or a point against us in our relationship. It doesn’t matter to me which religion he practices if he did and he doesn’t care either if I want to be Catholic, Wiccan or pray to the God of Shoes.

I am, as baffled by his culture as he is by mine. I don’t understand ANY of the religious stuff his family practices. He teases me about molesting priests and I tease about his religion’s snake handling.

I guess no matter how long we are married there will be plenty of things for us to explain to each other and for that I am grateful, we will never run out of things to talk about.

NOTHING FITS. PURSUE OF AMERICAN FITNESS.

My body aches, I have crammed this week two 40-minutres sessions of cardio on the treadmill, yoga, abs and arms workouts and even my lashes are weeping. People here are obsessed with fitness which is funny specially when one considers the fact that America is one of the heaviest (I don’t like the word fat) countries in the world. Like I have pointed out before this is a country of extremes where the morbidly obese and the scarily thin coexist in shaky harmony. Since I am neither skinny nor obese I find myself being in that unhappy middle where obese people hate you because you complain about your weight and you hate the skinny people because they complain about theirs. I gave the gym a shot last year. I went every day for six painful, miserable months and actually gained two fucking pounds.

I am now happily exercising at home with my yet-to-be-paid-for treadmill. I rather bust my ass at home in the privacy of my own four walls than do it in front of a bunch of strangers. Granted is not really easy to exercise around a hyperkinetic dog that licks, pushes, barks and shoves her snout on your crotch but I’ll take that over talking a stroll down to the bowels of Hell. Dante didn’t talk about it in his Comedy, but I am sure it was a mere oversight. What else can you call a place where they make you weigh yourself in front of your husband and make you take measurements of your body so you know IN NUMBERS that your ass is too big and your boobs too small? As if you weren’t well acquainted with that fact. What else can that place be, if not Hell? With all the mirrors and the unflattering harsh lights, the inane music that makes you feel trapped in an elevator while you endlessly loop on a treadmill. You add to that the people around you that are a walking promise of what you might become (Gym Barbie and Willie the whale are your choices) and that sounds to me like a cocktail for insanity.

I remember clearly a girl in particular from my six-month stint in hell (a la Persephone) she was a chubby girl who was trying so hard to lose weight, you could see it. She used to jog/crawl on the treadmill next to mine, sheer determination coming off of her like waves. I could feel her need to fit in a pair of single digits Jeans. So there she was, wheezing air in and out, everything jiggling while her face got purple with a mix of pain, heat and concentration. She would watch Dancing with the Stars on the TV in front of us, seeing the graceful dancers and the cute outfits as an incentive to lose some weight and the shimmery lights distracting her from the pain. Inevitably damnation came in the shape of an Applebee’s commercial, with their fake “healthy” food and their yummy, greasy goodness. You could see the bodiless hands dipping the boneless wing in the sauce, damn them! And the girl would stop jogging, she knew that I knew that she was going to go home and wolf down some wings and there’s no point for her to kick her ass any longer for the night. Right when she is fantasizing about the drippy wings up come from the stairs the trim gym goddesses, in matching Nike outfits and perfect hair. They don’t sweat, they glisten and they climb the stairs gracefully while they pat the nonexistent sweat with a hand towel.

One time tired of seeing her defeat I did the unthinkable and talked to her, I NEVER talk to strangers but her face was just so sad that I couldn’t help it so I look at her and I could hear her thoughts: “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!!!” and I didn’t judge her because they were my thoughts too. Granted I didn’t really hate the skinny bitches in matching outfits and washboard abs. I would totally push them out of the way if a bus was going to hit them. I would just push reaaaaal hard. So filled with pity for my kindred spirit I told her: “Whatever they have like no ass” and smiled at her. She looked at me and I guess she thought I wasn’t heavy enough to hate along with her because her withering stare still gives me the hibbie jibbies and she replied: “Yes, they have no ass, but I have TWO” and she spits that “TWO” at me like a dart.

Even after that I kept going to the gym. I became one of those people I “ugh” about. I never really belonged there, tough, but kept going anyway. Dear Husband loved the routine, the endorphins (an urban myth as far as I am concerned). He would be all peppy and smiley and my eyes were stinging from the sweat, I was blinded by the fog in my glasses, my muscles cramping all confused because they were never worked like that before and my lungs didn’t know quite what to do with the air.

I hated that fucking place; even just remembering makes my blood boil. I still remember Dear Husband’s voice saying: “When you cheat while exercising you are only cheating yourself” every time I took a break. I love that man. God knows I do but when we were at the gym he would say stuff like “Don’t lock your knees” or “Give me two more”, “Love the burn, feel the burn” or my personal favorite “There is no can't here” and I swear I would feel this homicidal urge that only the fear of being someone’s bitch from 15 to 20 and that horrid orange jumpsuit, would stop me from going “Snapped” on his ass.

I tried. I really did. I would wake up tired and achy and not an ounce thinner and I would just say to myself “muscle is heavier than fat” and fool myself into going again. I would try to be all positive and shit and imagine myself jogging at the beach in my thong with nothing jiggling. I would repeat “The Secret” in my head over and over again “Don’t just wish to be happy, be happy, feel happy” Smug bastards.

The pain, I assured myself, was a gentle reminder of my efforts, I would someday, laugh at my pains, no! Someday I wouldn’t even remember what it was like! And I would be curling 35 pounds and I would run around naked in the beach, thong? Who needs a thong!? I would walk around the gym doing nothing, patting my forehead with a towel and being hated by all. Sigh. That’s when you know you are hot when petty women hate you on principle.

I am a stinking failure because no matter how obsessed this nation becomes with a 100 pound ideal of beauty I am never going to be it. I am Hispanic! My ass alone weighs close to 100 pounds. I cannot fight genetics. I am not meant to be thin and I am okay with it. I just wish every commercial, TV show, model; clothing store would stop ramming their ideals down my throat. Only in this country you go to a store where the size L is actually small enough to fit a 130 pound woman. Who do they think they are catering to? The average American woman is a size 10 to 14 but the stores carry jeans from 0 to an 8. Cero is not a size damn it! It’s a non-size! You have to actually go to that dark, musty area of the store where the “plus sizes”. Nobody wants to walk to that area of the store. That means the cute, tiny and acceptable jeans don’t fit your fat ass! Just walking in the periphery of the “plus” size is bad for your reputation, people look at you funny and you want to get violent... remind me, why do I like shopping again?

No matter. I will work out at home and be healthy and fit and God forbid curvy.
Fuck this country idea of beauty.

BOUNDARIES? WHAT DO YOU EAT THAT WITH?

Now that I am happily married to my own blue eyed gringo, I am always stricken by the differences between us and our respective families. Marriage is hard business indeed, (all that seating on pee because they won’t put the sit up, hearing them go the bathroom, or worse yet when you are warned not to go in right after they leave it…it’s hard work indeed.

Since my cousins, my sister and I are all married to men from different cultures, I never run out of things to compare notes about. We are one of those brave few who jump in a risky venture like marriage with the added variant of a cultural gap. Believe me they are never ending, from something as minor as the cartoons we watched growing up, pop culture references to something major like the holidays and how we relate to other family members.

Take for example when my Dear Husband and I started dating, my aunt and grandma where so curious they demanded I took a picture of him, they asked me about his profession, how tall he was, if he was cute and if he came from a good family. All I had to say was that he had pretty blue eyes (he insists they are green) a college degree and his parents were missionaries to guarantee the seal of approval.

I was present when Dear Husband called his grandpa for father’s day and the conversation was something like this: “I hear you have a new girlfriend” Grandpa L said. “Yes, grandpa, I do” He answered looking at me smiling and holding my hand all romantically. “Is she black?” Grandpa L asked making Dear Husband blush as I gasped with the spit I swallowed wrong.

Now I am NOT implying that my now grandpa-in-law is racist, not at all! The man is also an ex-missionary who has helped and lived with people of all races, nationalities and cultures, but the fact is, here in America marrying outside of your race or culture is still something that is worth discussing. Worth talking about. I laughed my ass off when he asked that and even more when Dear Husband said: “No, she’s Hispanic” and his grandpa said: “Ooo a hot Latina” Which I found adorable.

I have 27 first cousins, FIRST Cousins, and that does not include all the second cousins and the cousins of cousins that I also consider cousins. Dear Husband has five or six? Our differences don’t end there. Dear Husband is close to his family in such a different way I am to mine. Boundaries and privacy are practically non-existent when you are Hispanic, there are no secrets, no gossip left untold, no argument between couples that the whole family doesn’t hear about and no medical treatment that some cousin is taking that we are not all privy of. I knew the moment that one of my cousins was diagnosed with irritable bowel movement, I knew when my other cousin started treatment to get pregnant and how often and when during the day she took her shots, I knew when she got an urinary tract infection and I knew that my other cousin was suffering from an early form of ulcer.

We are so all up in each other’s business ALL THE TIME that I find it weird refreshing when Dear Husband doesn’t know intimate details about his brother or sister. I know details of my family’s sex life that I don’t want to know about but know anyway, that’s how it works for us, close to the point of sickness.

My parents in law came to our wedding and stayed in a hotel, to what my mom said: “What for? We have a pull out couch” In a completely puzzled tone of voice, and would’ve been offended if I didn’t tell her that is just the way they are, and they were trying to be nice by not inconveniencing us. “What inconvenience? We are family now” She said and to this day I still think she thinks they thought her couch was not good enough.

Pull out couches had to be a Hispanic invention. What a better way to guarantee family members to stay over at all times! My mom’s cousins (they were raised together they are not even related!) spent 5 months each year for two years living with us. They would come in December and leave in April and stay with us the entire time. Dear Husband who was living with me at the time (IN SIN! Scandal!) had a hard time understanding that concept. He didn’t understand why someone would want to spend five months cramped in one room when there were other alternatives, hotels, apartments for rent, etc. He doesn’t understand that Hispanic families have two problems, they have a problem saying no, so even if we didn’t want them there we couldn’t say anything and we have a complete disregard for our family’s space and need for privacy.

I am sure next time his family comes over they will rent a hotel room again and stay over there while we in a very civilized way see each other for dinners and brunches and then part company at night when everybody goes their until the next morning.

In my family there is no hotel room good enough when there is an extra bed empty where cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents can crash, there is no meeting for brunch but two hours of complete and utter bedlam while ten people try to make breakfast, talking and laughing at the same time and asking for coffee at the top of their lungs. There is no room service but an uncomfortable yet common sharing of bathroom to pee while others shower. There’s the saying “Oh mija me guindas de cualquier clavito” which roughly translates to “Oh hon you can put me anywhere” Actually if one family member were to call the other asking if it was a problem to stay over we would assume they are mad at us. “I think she’s mad at me! Why else would she call to ask and make a sarcastic question about being able to stay? What does she want? A written invitation?”

Dear Husband opened the door to find some family members at the door who were staying the night to travel to a town close by. “Oh I didn’t know they were coming” He said to me hugging everyone and giving them kisses in the cheek like he learned to do since we met. “Neither did I” I said and he just laughed at us and our utter lack of etiquette when it comes to family.

I have been blessed with the most sociable of gringos who has not one complained about the size of my family, the frequency of their visits or the volume of their voice. He talks to my cousins, teases them on facebook, argues with my uncle and seamlessly and easily became one of them. I know I envy Dear Husband’s family respect of privacy and their so sweet and nice way of trying to make things easy for everyone and not inconvenience by staying somewhere else. But I know without a doubt that when my kitchen is as busy as a bus stop with people yelling and laughing and elbows are digging everywhere and we are all driving each other crazy and being insanely loud, that if they were in a hotel across town, I would miss them terribly.

SWEET CANDOR

I’ve always thought it was awesome when non-Hispanic people tell me of their assumptions or perceptions of us Latinos. I’ve always thought that even when sometimes they are not flattering or accurate assumptions and perception it was interesting to see what they thought and to view ourselves from their point of view.

Dear husband for example doesn’t understand why we (my family) are so incredibly loud, and when I thought he was being just picky and explained that it was just a lot of us he smiled and said nothing but brought it up when we were with his family last year for his brother’s wedding and there were like 20 or so of them in a room and I could actually hear myself think (I still don’t understand how so many people can make so little noise!)

Note to self: Research that phenomenon further.

He was right, we are incredibly loud, and articulate and use our hands a lot and point with our mouths instead of our fingers (pointing is rude) gossip a lot and respect no one’s privacy and so on and on and on. That doesn’t bother me though. I consider gossip nothing more than another form of communication and transferring of information and being loud is a given because if you aren’t loud then how do you expect to be heard above the yelling of those around you? Duh.

Another thing Dead Dear Husband criticizes has an opinion on is the fact that we tell lies.

One time we were invited to go somewhere and I didn’t want to go and he didn’t care if we went or not so after coming up (at the drop of a hat) with an excuse to refuse the invitation we stayed home to watch Jeopardy! And eat my mom’s cooking. Even thought he got to enjoy the fruits of my white lie, he decides to hop on his favorite high horse and give me a speech about the evils of lying (I didn’t see him running to the phone to tell the truth did I?!). The nerve of the man! He gets to do what he wants, he gets to not say a thing to the people we cancel on, he gets to be the good guy to our friends (because I am the one cancelling) and to top it all off he gets to feel morally superior because he isn’t the one lying!. After chewing his ass off one day after he accused me of lying once more he decided to drop the subject and simply enjoy his wife’s amazing lying abilities.

I am a good liar, I won’t lie (hehe) I am, is the truth I promise. It’s not my fault though we Latinos have been conditioned since birth to lie. Here they call it white lies, in Spanish is “mentiritas blancas” and I call it “The art of Diplomatic Bullshiting”.

We Latinos grew up thinking that a little white lie is preferable at times to telling the truth. Don’t get me wrong, honesty is always welcome (except when it’s not) and we are encouraged to tell the truth in certain situations but in general we lie about everything. Latinos as a group have a serious problem saying the word “No” and answering uncomfortable questions. We lie for everything, we are equal opportunity liars. From a dropped call to screening to not answering text messages right away to saying yes to an invite to the movies even though we hate it.

If someone ask us to a party for example and we are working late that day and we are going to have a problem making it we instantly tell the truth “Sucks, I won’t be able to make it, damn it, I’ll be working late” BUT if we simply don’t feel like going and want to stay home to watch re-runs of “So you Think you can Dance” we have to, we MUST come up with an lie excuse.

Because if you say “Sorry I can’t” and don’t offer an explanation you can bet your ass the person will ask you “Why the hell not?” and you can’t tell someone you don’t want to go to their party because you rather see people do modern interpretive dance on TV while eating Ramen Noodles, can you? Because they’ll get their feelings hurt and we don’t want to do that!

See? We are forced to lie. There’s no escape. Ms. Manners would say there is no reason to offer an explanation and that simply verbally RSVPing “No” is good enough and that someone who rudely ask “WHY?” does not deserve the nice gesture of a good response, but Ms. Manners is not Hispanic so what the hell does she know?

We have no other choice than to come up with an elaborate reason why we can’t make it and after years of repeating the process one grows quite adept at this lying business. Dear Husband would ask “Why don’t you just tell them you don’t feel like it?” Well that’s ‘cause us Latinos are not only white liars but also incredibly pushy. If you say just “no” they will insist on you going! Lying just make things so much easier for everybody and if you don’t lie then they will talk shit about you at the party and how pretentious you are and how the party apparently wasn’t “good enough for you” (Yeah we also talk a lot of shit about other people).

I’ve gotten used to people (Gringos) telling me they just don’t feel like it or they can’t make it without an explanation, but before I used to get pissed! At least have the decency to lie to me, you know? Make something up! Make an effort! But people here are incredibly candid that they don’t feel they have to. They (in general) are open about everything, and I mean everything. I have heard things from people I really don’t need (or want) to know. I mean we are the ones that are supposed to be up all in people’s business! Yet I’ve noticed that gringos are so much more open about their stuff than I wanted expected them to be.

From my friend Erin who told me her life story the first time I met her to my other friend who has no problem informing me about the night she spent with diarrhea. Candor is something I definitely appreciate now but took some getting used to.

My mom is new to candor. She has a problem telling people off and she is a perfect example of Hispanic manners to the extreme because she even hangs out with people she can’t stand because she feels mean or rude saying no! (My mom’s special) she even feels bad for not liking them. “I’m sure I’ll like them if I make an effort” Let it go mom they are a bunch of cunty bitches!

Honestly sometimes I wish I could be as candid and openly talk about my bowel movements, my daddy issues and my inability to eat M&Ms because they are so cute, but I am too comfortable in the bed of my excuses so why bother? I’ll keep on giving excuses and making shit up.

Now I have to go, my boss is here and I should be working (sounds believable don’t it?)