Charlotte Sometimes

There's some rants.

Thursday, June 27, 2002

More Tales of Amoebic Dyssentery

Okay so many years ago I took this wonderful protracted road trip through Mexico and one of the first stops was in the Pacific resort town of Mazatlan -- sort of a poor Gringo's Acapulco. We found a private "campground," with all the niceties and spaciousness and hygiene of a Balkan refugee camp. There were hundreds of Budget Gringos like us there. (But don't get the wrong idea, I had a great time there and everywhere in Mexico, and those Pacific beaches are spectacular, the equal of any on Earth. And I had the four-wheel drive so we hit lots of them that we had all to ourselves.)

Anyway, a few spots away from us at the "campground" were some California bikers (that's "bikees" in Ozian). One of them, straight from Hollywood Central Casting, was a nasty-looking monster of a guy, easily a 300-pounder -- Santa Claus with prison tattoos and a 12-year methamphetamine habit. He radiated Big Appetites, Healthy Life Drives, and Poor Impulse Control. I hadn't had much prior experience with bikers, and sort of cringed when he wandered around and struck up idle Yank-to-Yank conversation.

The next day as I passed his site, there he was flat on his back on the concrete slab, moaning and whining and thrashing and begging to die -- "las Turistas" had reduced this menacing powerhouse of a pirate to a pathetic hulk -- he must have dropped to 285 overnight. He was now at the stage where he didn't have enough strength to crawl to the loo anymore.

I went back to my campsite and fished around for the bottle of tiny Lomotil pills I'd had the Boy Scout foresight to bring along. I went back and told Biff or Rip or Scum or whatever his name was to take one.

That night I was fixing dinner when I was suddenly swept off my feet into the bear-hug embrace of the giant biker, now vertical again, and restored to color and life, and grinning. "THANK YOU LITTLE BUDDY!" he screamed in my ear as he attempted to French kiss me. "THANK YOU! YA SAVED MY LIFE! I LOVE YOU!"

He offered to kill my enemies for me and a few other special biker gifts unavailable in most catalogs. He was out of control with gratitude; I think he really wanted to marry me and take me home. I told him just seeing him recovered was All The Thanks I Needed. But for the next couple of days, he waved at me as if I were a Major Deity in his life.

How can such a tiny pill fix King Kong's diarrhea so quickly? Huh? Answer me that.

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