
I’m in Mexico. I hate it here.
Next week I have to be in Japan and I will most likely hate it there also. Why do I hate it here in Mexico? Well, beside the fact that my ability to get on the Internet is hit or miss and I may have to send this column in is by re-writing it from on one of those “Internet café” computers – better known as “suck the money from the American assholes” – there is the massive attack on my very being to buy a damn timeshare.
From the moment I stepped off the plane I was harassed like a freshman pledge during Hell Week. I was offered everything from free meals to cold hard cash just to “come to a short presentation.” Telling these people I was here on business did nothing to stop their assault. I could have been shot in the head and they would have asked me if I wanted to stop to take a look at some timeshare property on the way to the hospital.
Why will I hate it in Japan next week? Because I hate to travel and I hate being in any country where I know they hide some resentment to America. I know that some people in Mexico and Japan have issues with us. From what I see when I look around Mexico the people are friendly and helpful…but every so often I see daggers in their eyes. I was told the average wage here was six dollars a day.
SIX DOLLARS A DAY.
We spend that much on a cup of coffee from Starbucks.
I don’t think that’s why some people here hate us. I think they hate us because of malls.
Yeah, I said malls. I needed to buy some stuff so I went to a mall. I’m thinking that at six bucks a day as a living wage there should be some great bargains at the mall. The mall I went to was no bargain, in fact it was crazy expensive.
Then I realized something. Those malls in Mexico are not for the Mexicans.
No. They are for us, the Ugly Americans.
That’s why some here hate us.
So here I sit in a country where most people make six dollars a day and I’m sure they hate me. I’m even surer that they think that Americans are idiots. We live in the richest country in the world and the two candidates are not talking about terrorism, or nuclear weapons or oil prices. No, they are talking about lipstick. (more…)