Latest / The Ben Maller Show / The Fifth Hour: High-Altitude Maller Misadventures

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The Fifth Hour: High-Altitude Maller Misadventures · The Ben Maller Show

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  Speaker 1: Kaboom if you thought four hours a day 1200 minutes
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  Speaker 1: a week was enough think again he's the last remnants
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  Speaker 1: of the old republic a sole bastion of fairness he
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  Speaker 1: treats crackheads in the ghetto gutter the same as the
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  Speaker 1: rich pill poppers in the penthouse wow the clearinghouse of
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  Speaker 1: hot takes break free for something special the fifth hour
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  Speaker 1: with ben maller starts right now.
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  Speaker 2: In the air everywhere. The Fifth Hour with me, Ben Maller.
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  Speaker 2: And a happy Friday. We kick off another weekend together
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  Speaker 2: in the Magic Pod Box. Only available here. In the
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  Speaker 2: podcast world, you cannot find this on any radio station.
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  Speaker 2: This is a pod-only edition, and it's unlike just about
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  Speaker 2: anything that we've done on the Fifth Hour Podcast over
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  Speaker 2: the many years that we've been doing this podcast. The
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  Speaker 2: Malheur Misadventures South of the Border. Think of this like
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  Speaker 2: a nine-chapter audio book more than the traditional podcast. Fifth
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  Speaker 2: Hour Podcast. I took copious amounts of notes on my iPhone,
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  Speaker 2: on the Notes app, to remember as much as I
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  Speaker 2: possibly could from what took place recently. And so rather
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  Speaker 2: than give you a bunch of random fun facts about
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  Speaker 2: today and all of that, the holidays, we go right
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  Speaker 2: into it. So there are certain things, think of this
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  Speaker 2: as chapter one, there are certain things in life that
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  Speaker 2: I enjoy. There's certain things that you enjoy. Now, I
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  Speaker 2: enjoy my bed. I got a sleep number bed years ago.
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  Speaker 2: They were an advertiser. I still have it. I love it.
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  Speaker 2: Wonderful bed. I enjoy the sofa that I have. I
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  Speaker 2: enjoy knowing where the bathroom is located. And more importantly,
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  Speaker 2: what awaits me when I get to the powder room.
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  Speaker 2: I enjoy predictability. I am a creature of habit. I
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  Speaker 2: believe that is underrated. Some people want adventure. There are
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  Speaker 2: people that want to run with the bulls in Pamplona,
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  Speaker 2: climb mountains, swim with sharks, eat mysterious critters and creatures
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  Speaker 2: prepared by a human wearing sandals on the side of
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  Speaker 2: a highway. I am not that person. I like air conditioning.
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  Speaker 2: I enjoy reliable plumbing. I like the ability to communicate
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  Speaker 2: with another human being without resorting to some elaborate game
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  Speaker 2: of charades. So, in many ways, I am a simple man.
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  Speaker 2: As you know, I can be neurotic about a lot
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  Speaker 2: of things. That is the way I am. So, naturally,
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  Speaker 2: as some of you know, I spent last weekend in
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  Speaker 2: Mexico City. Viva Mexico! Now, before... You start imagining me
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  Speaker 2: wearing a giant sombrero, drinking tequila, dancing in the streets
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  Speaker 2: with the locals. I should explain how this happened. So
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  Speaker 2: it wasn't my idea. This is important. My wife wanted
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  Speaker 2: to go to Mexico City. It was her girlfriend's birthday.
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  Speaker 2: And really, the girlfriend from work wanted to go to
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  Speaker 2: Mexico City. So my wife wanted to go to Mexico
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  Speaker 2: City with her two longtime friends from work. Jen and Ashley.
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  Speaker 2: It was Ashley's birthday, which, as you know, is not
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  Speaker 2: just a birthday. It's like a whole birthday month. When
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  Speaker 2: you have a birthday now, it's not just the day
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  Speaker 2: of the birthday. It's not the week of the birthday.
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  Speaker 2: It's a birthday month. So these are wonderful women, lovely people,
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  Speaker 2: sweet spirits. I've known them for a number of years.
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  Speaker 2: And somewhere along the way, I ended up getting invited.
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  Speaker 2: And that's usually how trouble begins. You get invited. You
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  Speaker 2: say yes. Next thing you know, you're sitting on a
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  Speaker 2: toilet in a foreign country with no toilet paper, wondering
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  Speaker 2: whether the United States embassy handles this sort of emergency. Alas,
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  Speaker 2: I am getting ahead of myself. So I mentioned this
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  Speaker 2: is chapter one, the reluctant international traveler. So I'm going
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  Speaker 2: to tell you right now, Mexico City was never on
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  Speaker 2: my bucket list. If you said, hey, Mallor, can you
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  Speaker 2: name some countries you want to go to? Mexico City,
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  Speaker 2: not on there. My bucket list consists of things like
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  Speaker 2: drugging myself to get eight consecutive hours of sleep. finding
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  Speaker 2: a good parking place out in front of Costco, making
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  Speaker 2: it through an entire week without somebody asking me to
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  Speaker 2: download another app or the company I work for to
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  Speaker 2: do some training that takes two hours of clicking and
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  Speaker 2: watching videos that you already know the answers to. I
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  Speaker 2: don't have Machu Picchu or whatever it's called on there.
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  Speaker 2: I don't have the Great Wall of China. I like
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  Speaker 2: the fact that I have a functioning garbage disposal. A dishwasher,
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  Speaker 2: that's enough excitement. Now, my understanding of Mexico, based on
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  Speaker 2: years of hearing horror stories from friends and coworkers and
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  Speaker 2: seeing stuff online, was that there are three principal hazards
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  Speaker 2: when you go to Mexico. You've got to look out
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  Speaker 2: for the cartels, the contaminated water, and the toilets. Those
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  Speaker 2: are the big three. The toilets that do not accept
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  Speaker 2: toilet paper. Three things. All right. Kidnapping, Montezuma's revenge and plumbing.
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  Speaker 2: Not necessarily in that order. Now, this is the part
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  Speaker 2: of the story where I point out, is that a
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  Speaker 2: fair representation of Mexico? Of course not. Of course not.
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  Speaker 2: It's the representation of a middle aged gas bag whose
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  Speaker 2: primary source of international intelligence is whatever he happens to
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  Speaker 2: hear in the hallways of FSR. And I've been there
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  Speaker 2: a long time. A lot of my friends have gone
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  Speaker 2: to Mexico and told me stories. Now, am I proud
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  Speaker 2: of this? No, I'm not proud of this. I am consistent, though.
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  Speaker 2: My wife, however, was excited. I don't think she was acting.
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  Speaker 2: She seemed excited. And as we've talked about, marriage is
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  Speaker 2: a negotiation. Sometimes you get to choose what you have,
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  Speaker 2: the food, the type of food, the restaurant. Sometimes you
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  Speaker 2: get to choose the television program you watch. And sometimes
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  Speaker 2: your wife decides you're going to Mexico City and you're
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  Speaker 2: going to discover that you love it. And if you
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  Speaker 2: don't love it, you're going to pretend to love it.
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  Speaker 2: And it's that part where the whole negotiating thing, you
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  Speaker 2: have about as much power as a lawn chair. So
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  Speaker 2: I went. And I prepared for this international journey the
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  Speaker 2: way I prepare for most things in life. Bupkis. Now,
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  Speaker 2: I did watch a couple of YouTube travel videos at
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  Speaker 2: 3 in the morning. Some enthusiastic young people, good-looking, in
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  Speaker 2: their 20s, told me that Mexico City was amazing. The
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  Speaker 2: food was.
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  Speaker 1: Amazing.
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  Speaker 2: The culture, amazing. Everything was amazing. Travel influencers have never
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  Speaker 2: met a destination they didn't describe as amazing. You could
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  Speaker 2: be in Pyongyang, surrounded by people that are not able
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  Speaker 2: to live free life. And there would be like, oh, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: there would be somebody on YouTube. Oh, let me tell you,
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  Speaker 2: these people are very happy. It's a great country. You
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  Speaker 2: could send these people to a sewage treatment plant in Cleveland,
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  Speaker 2: and they say, oh, this is so great. These are
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  Speaker 2: the real Cleveland Browns right here. And they describe it
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  Speaker 2: as a hidden gem with a great gift shop and
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  Speaker 2: authentic local character and flavor. So my wife handled all
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  Speaker 2: the logistics, the flights, the accommodations, all that stuff. She was,
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  Speaker 2: in this story, the travel agent. God bless her. I
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  Speaker 2: was the luggage. Now, the night before we left, I
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  Speaker 2: did my regular overnight show on Fox Sports Radio. Did
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  Speaker 2: not tell more than a couple of people I was
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  Speaker 2: going to Mexico City. I finished the show and my
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  Speaker 2: other commitments a little after 3 in the morning. I
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  Speaker 2: had to record a segment with my friend Bob Fesco
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  Speaker 2: on his Kansas City morning show. So then we finished
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  Speaker 2: packing up the Mallarmobile, drove out to Ashley's home. That's
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  Speaker 2: where we met. And from there, an Uber to LAX.
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  Speaker 2: So this tacked on an extra two hours of travel.
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  Speaker 2: No sleep, none. Zippo. Now, this was already... A mistake.
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  Speaker 2: I am a person who works overnight radio. My biological
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  Speaker 2: clock has been vandalized for decades, and now I was
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  Speaker 2: about to fly internationally on the sleep schedule of a
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  Speaker 2: nice wild raccoon. And LAX, of course. I can do
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  Speaker 2: 30 minutes on LAX, my personal hell, my nemesis. I
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  Speaker 2: would rather fly from one of the other L.A. area
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  Speaker 2: airports and have a layover of seven hours in Denver
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  Speaker 2: or Salt Lake or Dallas or Atlanta. I just would.
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  Speaker 2: If it means avoiding LAX, I'd consider a connection through
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  Speaker 2: the International Space Station. You feel me on that? Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 2: the cheapest flight was out of Los Angeles. We did
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  Speaker 2: consider going to Tijuana. They have an airport there. You
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  Speaker 2: can park right across. Well, you park on the U.S.
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  Speaker 2: side of the border and then walk across to the
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  Speaker 2: airport to fly. But the flights were actually not any
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  Speaker 2: cheaper there than they were at LAX. So we went
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  Speaker 2: to LAX. And as you know, I am nothing if
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  Speaker 2: not cheap. So three and a half hours later, we
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  Speaker 2: landed in Mexico City. And here's the first surprise. The
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  Speaker 2: airport in Mexico City was nicer than than LAX. Think
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  Speaker 2: about that. I had traveled thousands of miles to another
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  Speaker 2: country carrying decades of preconceived anxiety. I'm now in a
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  Speaker 2: country where over 40% of the population lives in poverty.
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  Speaker 2: only to discover that the first thing Mexico had done
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  Speaker 2: was outperform Los Angeles International Airport, LAX. Not exactly climbing
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  Speaker 2: Mount Everest, but it was an upset. Now, chapter two
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  Speaker 2: of this Mahler audiobook, Houston, we have an altitude problem.
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  Speaker 2: So the very first thing I noticed in Mexico City
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  Speaker 2: was not the architecture. It was not the people. It
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  Speaker 2: was just everything. I guess humanity is part of it,
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  Speaker 2: so I will include people. There are people everywhere. It's
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  Speaker 2: like living in an ant hive. People on sidewalks, people
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  Speaker 2: in cars, people selling things, people buying things, people trying
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  Speaker 2: to get around other people so they can buy things.
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  Speaker 2: The metropolitan area in Mexico City has more than 20
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  Speaker 2: million residents. 20 million. That is not a city. That
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  Speaker 2: is a family reunion that got out of control. But
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  Speaker 2: the second thing I noticed was more concerning. I was
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  Speaker 2: breathing a little funny, not funny in the amusing sense,
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  Speaker 2: funny in the sense of am I about to become
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  Speaker 2: a medical case study? So I took a breath. Something
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  Speaker 2: seemed a little off. I took another breath. It was
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  Speaker 2: still off a little bit. Now, I've spent enough time
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  Speaker 2: worrying about random health things to recognize the beginning of
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  Speaker 2: a personal medical drama-o-rama. So my brain immediately opened the
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  Speaker 2: emergency department. Well, there must be something terribly wrong. There
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  Speaker 2: must be something terribly wrong. You're having a heart problem.
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  Speaker 2: You're having a lung problem. Did I catch something, some
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  Speaker 2: gobbledygook thingamajig on the airplane? Did that happen? Was the
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  Speaker 2: airport air conditioning circulating some exotic tropical disease? Then I
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  Speaker 2: learned something that would have been helpful to know before arriving.
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  Speaker 2: You see, Mexico City is.
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  Speaker 2: Cooler than Denver in terms of altitude. Mexico City sits
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  Speaker 2: approximately 7,350 feet above sea level. 7,350 feet above sea level.
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  Speaker 2: Denver is at 5,280 feet. That means Denver has spent
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  Speaker 2: generations bragging about being the mile-high city when Mexico City
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  Speaker 2: sits nearly 2,100 feet higher. Apparently, though, they're too busy
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  Speaker 2: to bother with a whole marketing campaign. Hey, Denver, we're
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  Speaker 2: bigger than you. I believe my mallard mask says that's
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  Speaker 2: 1.4 miles up in the sky. 1.4 miles up in
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  Speaker 2: the sky. So Denver needs to update its resume and
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  Speaker 2: they got to work on that. And suddenly I'm breathing
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  Speaker 2: and it made sense. Like there wasn't necessarily anything wrong
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  Speaker 2: with me. I was simply attempting to operate my aging
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  Speaker 2: American machinery at an altitude for which it had not
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  Speaker 2: been properly calibrated. My lungs had filed a complaint. My
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  Speaker 2: heart wanted to speak with management. My legs, as I
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  Speaker 2: would soon discover, were fully preparing for a labor stoppage.
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  Speaker 2: So this is something that the travel bloggers neglected to emphasize.
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  Speaker 2: They talked a lot about the museums. They talked about restaurants.
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  Speaker 2: They talked about some of the architecture, some of the buildings.
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  Speaker 2: Nobody said, by the way, Ben, your lungs may feel
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  Speaker 2: like they're trying to download a software update using... crappy
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  Speaker 2: public hotel Wi-Fi in the lobby. It's an oversight, a significant,
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  Speaker 2: significant oversight. So moving on to chapter three. Spanglish is
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  Speaker 2: not a language, it is a cry for help. So
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  Speaker 2: I live in Southern California. I have lived around Spanish
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  Speaker 2: speakers for much of my life. I've had friends whose
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  Speaker 2: families speak Spanish at home. I've heard Spanish on television,
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  Speaker 2: in restaurants, in grocery stores. I know words. Many words.
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  Speaker 2: For example, hola, gracias, por favor, chalupa.
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  Speaker 1: Right?
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  Speaker 2: That's good. Modelo, burrito, talker, taco, cerveza. All of that.
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  Speaker 2: I believe that's eight words right there. I think there's
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  Speaker 2: eight words. Practically bilingual. Or so I thought. So I
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  Speaker 2: had convinced myself... with doing no amount of research, that
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  Speaker 2: I could survive in Mexico City using something called Spanglish. Now,
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  Speaker 2: Spanglish is the linguistic equivalent of assembling furniture without instructions.
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  Speaker 2: You have some English, you have some Spanish, you throw
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  Speaker 2: them all together, and you hope that nobody gets hurt.
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  Speaker 2: And here's the problem, though. Actual Spanish speakers who have
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  Speaker 2: the native tongue do not necessarily cooperate in... with this arrangement.
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  Speaker 2: They speak Spanish fluently, quickly. It's a complete nonsense situation
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  Speaker 2: compared to what I was expecting for some reason. They
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  Speaker 2: talk in complete sentences, and I discovered almost immediately that
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  Speaker 2: I was in over my skis. I couldn't keep up.
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  Speaker 2: Someone would ask me a question. I would smile. I'd
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  Speaker 2: recognize the first word, then the second word would arrive,
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  Speaker 2: then 17 additional words would arrive, and my brain would
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  Speaker 2: simply shut down. The processor was overloaded. I was the
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  Speaker 2: human equivalent of a computer from 1997 using AOL dial-up
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: to try to stream a 4K movie. So again, my move,
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  Speaker 2: I smile, I nod, I say,' See?' And I had
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  Speaker 2: absolutely no idea what I had agreed to. This is dangerous.
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  Speaker 2: You could ask me whether I wanted extra salsa. I'd
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  Speaker 2: say C. You could ask me whether I wanted to
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  Speaker 2: purchase a timeshare in Cancun. I would say C, nodding
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  Speaker 2: my head. You could ask me whether I wanted to
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  Speaker 2: donate a kidney. I'd probably say C because I didn't
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  Speaker 2: want to appear rude. Now, fortunately, the ladies who were
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  Speaker 2: with me outside of my wife, Jen and Ashley, the
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  Speaker 2: dynamic duo, the linguistic cavalry, had arrived, and they made
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  Speaker 2: this all possible. They could communicate. They could communicate with
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  Speaker 2: the random people. They could talk to the Uber drivers,
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  Speaker 2: the waiters at the restaurant. They could talk to random
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: people looking for directions. Now, my wife and I were
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  Speaker 2: essentially two confused tourists being escorted around Mexico City by
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  Speaker 2: competent adults. It was like a school field trip, except
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  Speaker 2: the children were middle-aged, right around there, and one of
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  Speaker 2: them was really tall, looks like Bigfoot, and constantly asking,
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  Speaker 2: where's the bathroom? I became fascinated by how quickly Jen
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  Speaker 2: and Ashley could switch between languages. The driver would say something.
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  Speaker 2: They'd respond. He'd laugh. They'd laugh. I'd laugh. And I
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  Speaker 2: had no idea what was funny. For all I knew,
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  Speaker 2: they were discussing my enormous dome, my enormous head. But
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  Speaker 2: I laughed anyway, because why not? You don't want to
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  Speaker 2: be the one person in the Uber who's not laughing.
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  Speaker 2: That's how international incidents begin. We want to avoid that
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  Speaker 2: at all costs. And when someone spoke Spanish to me,
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  Speaker 2: I'd look towards either Jen or Ashley and they would
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  Speaker 2: either translate or they'd tell me what to do and
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  Speaker 2: I'd respond in English and then they would translate back.
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  Speaker 2: It was the United Nations, except instead of negotiating nuclear disarmament,
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  Speaker 2: we were trying to determine whether a restaurant had Diet Coke.
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  Speaker 2: Diet Coke. I had briefly considered Google Translate. There were
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  Speaker 2: some people in the traveling party. who did use Google
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  Speaker 2: Translate that we ran into, but why bother? I had
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: two human translation devices traveling with me. No batteries required,
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  Speaker 2: and unlike artificial intelligence, they could tell when I was
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  Speaker 2: being an idiot, which was frequently. All right, chapter four,
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  Speaker 2: the great tortilla chip betrayal. One of my firm beliefs
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  Speaker 2: in life is that when you enter a Mexican restaurant,
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  Speaker 2: You should receive tortilla chips on the table, complimentary tortilla
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  Speaker 2: chips built into the price of the food with a
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  Speaker 2: little salsa immediately. Now, this is not a suggestion. This
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  Speaker 2: is a civilization. It is non-negotiable. When you go to
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  Speaker 2: an Italian restaurant, you expect a nice basket of bread
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  Speaker 2: and butter. When you go to a Mexican restaurant, you
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  Speaker 2: expect chips. It's a social contract that we have. However,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: nobody apparently informed him. Mexico. So we went out to
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  Speaker 2: eat near our Airbnb, and I waited. I waited. I waited.
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  Speaker 2: No chips. I looked around. Other tables, no chips. And
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  Speaker 2: I began to suspect an organized conspiracy. My older brother...
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  Speaker 2: who lives in New York, had warned me about this.
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  Speaker 2: He had been to Mexico City. He said, you're going
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  Speaker 2: to like it and all that stuff. It's a great city. However,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: be forewarned, they do not give out complimentary chips. That
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: is not standard practice. Now, I assumed that my brother
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: was exaggerating, knowing that I'm a chip fiend and I
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: love my chips. Unfortunately, he wasn't. So imagine going to
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Italy and discovering that they don't automatically give you unlimited breadsticks.
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  Speaker 2: You'd call your congressman. But I adapted. This is what
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  Speaker 2: international travel is all about. Learning, growing, accepting cultural differences.
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  Speaker 2: And even when those differences involve a tragic absence of
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  Speaker 2: free tortilla chips. Bad job by them. I ate the
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  Speaker 2: dreaded soft tacos, another one of my enemies, because when
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  Speaker 2: in Mexico, eat a soft taco... And they mostly avoid
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  Speaker 2: gringo tacos, at least what I consider a good gringo taco.
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  Speaker 2: The tacos here, the soft tacos, were actually pretty good,
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  Speaker 2: which scares me because I've always taken an anti-soft taco position.
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  Speaker 2: Back in America, I'm team crunchy taco. So I did
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  Speaker 2: remain disappointed about the chips. So the soft tacos were good.
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  Speaker 2: The chips situation was not, so whatever. Take that. All right, meanwhile,
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  Speaker 2: Chapter 5 of this Malheur audiobook, Seven Flights to Nowhere.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: So the highlight of the sporting part of our itinerary
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  Speaker 2: was Mexican professional wrestling. Lucha Libre. Now, this excited me.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: I grew up watching Vince McMahon and his group with
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Jim Hacksaw Duggan, the Junkyard Dog,
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  Speaker 2: all those old characters. The costumes the characters... war, the
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  Speaker 2: theatrical combat, and the crowd participation. It is a glorious
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  Speaker 2: combination of athletes, soap opera, and people hitting each other
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  Speaker 2: with a folding chair. Like, I'm a fan. I used
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  Speaker 2: to be a fan. Now, Mexico City has a legendary
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: wrestling tradition. Now, I'd heard about this over the years,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: but here I was at this arena in And I'm like, wow,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: that's kind of cool. And my wife had booked tickets
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: through some travel thing. She had booked tickets to the
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Arena Coliseo, I believe is how it's pronounced. Historic building
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: opened in the 1940s. 1943, this thing opened. And it
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: is associated with Salvador Luthero, one of the founding figures
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: in modern Mexican professional wrestling. So I was like, well,
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: this is going to be fun. And we navigated traffic.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: We actually had to use the subway, connected with transportation
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: to the arena on a bus, arrived a little late,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: no problem. We had tickets. I know they were in
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: the upper deck, but that's what we had. So now
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: I should explain at this part of the story something
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: about old arenas that you may not know living in America.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Modern American sports facilities are designed to make spectators comfortable.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: They are, right? Elevators, escalators, luxury suites, premium lounges, climate control,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: 73 varieties of chicken fingers. Arena Coliseo appeared to have
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: taken a much different approach. The approach they have was
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: you bought a ticket, start climbing, loser. So we went
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: out and found the stars. Up, up, up, and away
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: we went. One flight, two flights, three flights. At this point,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I was feeling optimistic. Four flights, five flights, optimism begins
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: to fade. Like, you'd have to be the biggest dope
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: to say, oh, I can't go into the locker room.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: I'll just rub this all over my shirt. Who does that? Well,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: apparently we know who does that, the person right there.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: It's like, come on now. It was crazy. So I
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: I go up four flights, five flights. The optimism, as
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: I said, kind of goes away. Six flights, seven flights, seven,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: not seven heaven, seven flights of stairs at 7,350 feet
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: above sea level. Who the hell designed this place? A
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: mountain goat. I was no longer attending a wrestling match.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I was participating in a Himalayan expedition. And where was
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: the Sherpa? Where was the oxygen tanks? I didn't see him.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Where was the little flag you plant when you reach
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: the summit at some point? I considered turning around, but
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: there were people behind me. You cannot be the big ragu,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: very tall, and you can't be that guy who gives
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: up climbing stairs while some elderly Mexican babushka wrestling fan
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: is carrying multiple beers upstairs. There's really a dignity issue,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: not a large dignity issue, a microscopic one, However, nevertheless,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: my lungs were now negotiating directly with my legs. The
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: lungs said, hey, we cannot supply enough oxygen. We cannot
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: do it. The legs said, well, that seems to be
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: a problem. My heart said, I was told this was
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: a vacation. It doesn't seem like a vacation. And then
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the heart went back to sleep. By the time we
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: reached the upper deck, covered in blood, sweat, and tears,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I felt like I had traveled. to Tanzania and climbed
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Mount Kilimanjaro without the benefit of a sponsorship from an
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: indoor clothing company. Wow. So I got there. I looked around.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: No one else seemed particularly bothered. People were talking, laughing,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: drinking beer. Apparently, the locals had adapted to the altitude. I, meanwhile,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: was contemplating whether... I could arrange for some helicopter evacuation
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: filled with oxygen tanks. Seven flights kept repeating this. Seven
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: different flights. Now in Los Angeles, if you ask people
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: to walk up seven flights of stairs, they call a lawyer.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: It's called a crime. Like, what are you doing? Seven flights.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I just kept repeating this. Seven flights. In Los Angeles,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: if you ask people, to walk up seven flights of stairs.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: They call a lawyer. Period. Stop. Here, it was all
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: part of the culture, the entertainment culture, and the seats
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: were steep, very steep, as much as sitting on concrete
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: can be steep. The kind of a steep where you
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: look down and realize that if you trip, you may
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: not stop rolling until you reach the wrestling ring, which
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: seems problematic, but you do, you boo. But once we
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: sat down, it was terrific. The building was compact. The
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: sound bounced around. The crowd was electric. People wearing wrestling masks.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: People shouting, drinking. People completely invested in the action. The
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: women wrestlers were the featured attraction on this night. And
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: the audience loved every minute of the ladies. There was
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: a rawness to the experience. A giant... corporate video board.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: We didn't get that demanding that you make some noise,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: no elaborate luxury club experience, no sponsor telling you that
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: the next body slam was brought to you by some
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: insurance company. All we had was just, just us, just wrestling.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: That's it. Fans, noise, energy, and my lard ass still
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: trying to recover from the staircase. So you had that. Meanwhile,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: chapter six, beer, water, and financial extortion. All ingredients in
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: a good pot. So another surprise was the concession situation.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: So in American arenas, you can purchase almost anything. Hot dogs, popcorn, pretzels, nachos, pizza,
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: chicken tenders, little chicken tendies action right there. I mentioned
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: the ice cream. Food that resembles food. Food that has
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: never encountered nature. At the Arena Coliseo, the selection appeared
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: to consist primarily of two things, beer and water, mostly beer.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: And it was like In-N-Out without the burgers, fries, or milkshakes.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: They streamlined the business model. Henry said, I admire the efficiency.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: I manage my expectations, all that stuff. The whole thing
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: seemed somewhat aggressive. And then we investigated the souvenir shop.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: And I thought about buying a shirt or a hat,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: maybe a hat, something commemorating my successful accent or ascent, rather,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: to the Mexican wrestling mountain, which I guess that's where
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I was. And then so I saw the prices. I
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: was at the gift shop, and apparently the Dodgers concession
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: department has been hired as consultants in Mexico City. I
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: was stunned. I began doing currency calculations. Fortunately, the iPhone
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: calculator has a currency conversation feature, which is a wonderful
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: achievement in tech. You enter the pesos and you click
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the arrows and it tells you the dollar amount. And
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: then you say, well, you got to be kidding me.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: You got to be joking. So we passed. And here's
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: the kicker. After the show, we discovered hundreds of souvenir
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: vendors outside the arena selling merch at much more of
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: a reasonable price. So I was like, all right, lesson learned.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Never purchase a souvenir until you're excited enough In the building, right?
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Until you've excited yourself in the building, and you really
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: shouldn't buy anything until you're not only excited, but until
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: you leave the building. Also, never purchase a wrestling ticket
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: without asking how many flights of stairs separate you from
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: your seat. These are important lessons. The travel bloggers never
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: mention these things. They just keep telling you how amazing
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: the architecture is and everything like that. All right, now
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: chapter seven. This is the plot twist. So we arrived
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: now to the defining moment of the trip. We're going
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: to call it the incident. The event that will live
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: in infamy. The Malheur Mexican bathroom crisis. It began, as
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: most of these do, innocently enough. It did. Halfway through
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: the wrestling show, nature calls. Not an emergency, not a crisis,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: just a routine. Number one, a perfectly reasonable biological request.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: And so I got up and made my way towards
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: the powder room. And now I had already been worried
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: about the Mexican plumbing. I'd heard that you cannot flush
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: the toilet paper. Instead, you're supposed to place the used
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: tissues in a trash can near the toilet. This disturbed me.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: I do not want to be sitting next to somebody
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: else's doo-doo. At the Mallard Mansion, we have a bidet.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not bragging unless I'm bragging. We have a bidet.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: A bidet. This is one of civilization's greatest inventions. The
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: dog is amazing. People celebrate the printing press, the telephone,
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: the group of people that get together at these things.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: But I would like to nominate the bidet. Clean, efficient, civilized.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: You push a button, you twist a knob. That's modern
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: technology taking care of business. It's like having a personal
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: car wash, a car wash just for your keister. But
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: in Mexico City, I had been warned that the bathroom
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: experience might be somewhat more primitive than I am used to.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: My original plan was simple. Just don't go number two.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: You've got four days. You've gone longer than that without
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: taking a doo-doo. So four days. Was this medically advisable?
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Hell no! It was not. Probably not. Was it realistic? Absolutely.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: But I had convinced myself that through the sheer power
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: of positive thinking, I could convince my digestive system to
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: suspend operations, and that's it. Well, it turns out that
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: was incorrect. Turns out that was incorrect. No temporary shutdown.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Not acting like the federal government. Unfortunately, my intestines did
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: not receive the memo. So I entered the wrestling arena
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: restroom expecting a routine number one, and then something changed.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: There was something that changed. A rumble from down under.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: A warning label. A message from the lower gastrointestinal department.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: We have a situation. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: Not here, not now. Not in a public restroom in
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: Mexico City. My body had betrayed me. I was 1.4
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: million above sea level and... What am I, 7,000 feet
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: out of a championship window at this point? I believe
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: that's accurate. I'm going to go with that. So why not?
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: There you go. Absolutely wonderful. Bravo. Again, my body had
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: betrayed me. That 1.4-mile trip up the mountain from sea level,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: seven flights above the arena floor and approximately 2,000 miles
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: outside of my personal comfort zone. And my digestive system
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: had decided this was the perfect time to conduct business.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: So I looked at the toilet paper. The toilet paper
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: looked back at me. I swear it did. I had
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: the expression of a machine that has killed, just killed Kenny.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: So anyway, that's where we are. Just an absolute, the
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: toilet thing was not good. All right. It just wasn't.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, the deal, as I say, you know,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: seven flights above the arena for one point four miles
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: above sea level, thousands of miles from my comfort zone.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: My digestive system had decided this was the perfect time
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: to conduct its operation. So I looked looked at everything
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: and it was all boy, this is not good. And
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: I had the expression of a machine that had seen
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: some things, this toilet, terrible things. There were no sanitary
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: seat covers, none, just the seat, the public seat, the
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: seat that had presumably accommodated generations of wrestling fans, hindquarters.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: And now it wanted me. And I stood there considering
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: my options. Could I wait? Absolutely not. Could I go
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: to the Airbnb, go back to the Airbnb? No way,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: because I'd have to circumnavigate this whole arena and get
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: a ride, the whole thing. My wife and her friends
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: were outside in their seats. So could I somehow negotiate
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: a postponement with my intestines? Again, absolutely not. There was
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: only one choice. I sat. Bare skin, public toilet, foreign country.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: The dignity was staggering. I'm a grown-ass man. I'm over 40.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I'm a man. I've worked in big time broadcasting jobs
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: for a long time. I've interviewed really famous people in
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: person and on the radio. I've traveled around the United
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: States with a pro baseball team. I've done a lot
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: of cool stuff. And now here I was sitting on
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: a public toilet in Mexico City, praying that my immune
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: system was properly funded. And eventually I did complete the mission.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: I was able to complete the mission, a successful delivery,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: no complications or so I thought. Then I reached for
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: the toilet paper, muscle memory, nothing. I reached again, Zippo.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I looked to the left, Bupkis. I looked to the right, Squadouche.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: I inspected where the tissue should have been. It was empty.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: Completely empty. There was no toilet paper. I froze. This
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: is the moment when the music stops in a horror movie.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: The moment when the protagonist opens the closet and discovers
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: the monster. Do the monster mash. Except the monster in
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: this story was a toilet paper dispenser. That was empty.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: I stared at it. Surely... There must be another role somewhere,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: a backup, an emergency supply, something, something. Nothing? I was trapped?
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Come on. So a sports radio blowhard stranded on a
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Mexican toilet without the basic equipment required a complete, you know,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: what are we doing situation here? I need to complete
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: the operation, and I don't have the basic equipment to
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: complete said operation. This was not just a bathroom visit.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: This was a hostage negotiation. And I was both the
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: hostage and the negotiator. Someone call the American embassy right now,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: the U.S. embassy. I considered my options. Could I just
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: sit there and buy some socks and that's it? I
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: could use my own socks. Of course, I was never
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: going to use my own socks. I could sacrifice a
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: pair of underwear. No, no. Possibly... I was like, well,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: maybe for a second. I kind of like my underwear.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: I wasn't prepared to become a commando guy. Could I
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: just sit there until the building closed? That's an intriguing option. However,
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: I doubted the wrestling promotion would send a rescue team.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: And then I remembered something. There was a bathroom attendant,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: a man stationed near the entrance. Now, normally.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Much like I love chips with my Mexican food, tortilla chips,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: complimentary tortilla chips, when it comes to other parts of
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: my life, I am not, not a fan of the
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: bathroom attendant. I just think it's one of the most
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: ridiculous things in the world. Not a fan, not a fan,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: not a fan, not a fan, not a fan, not
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: a fan. That's just how I'm wired is how that goes. So,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: there we were, doing our thing, whatever, in the bathroom.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: And the man was right there. And I have this
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: major issue with all that. And I've talked about it before.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: I don't need an audience when I wash my hands.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: I don't need somebody to tell me where the soap is.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: I don't need someone to hand me a paper towel
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: like I'm a surgeon preparing for an operation. I don't
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: need a gentleman standing three feet away waiting for a
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: tip because he turned on the faucet. But suddenly the
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: bathroom attendant, someone I've never met, becomes the most important
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: man in Mexico in that moment. He was my lifeline.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: He was my guardian angel, my personal emergency response unit.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: There was only one problem. I don't speak Spanish. Not
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: real Spanish. I speak, my language is Spanglish. I'm a
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Spanglish guy, as we've talked about. And this situation required
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: a level of linguistic precision that my vocabulary simply did
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: not possess. So how do you explain to a stranger
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: that you've just used the toilet and discovered there's no paper?
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: How do you say that with any kind of dignity? Well,
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: you don't. You don't. The dignity had left the building.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: So I pulled up my pants. That's right. Pulled up
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: my pants under extremely unfavorable conditions and made the walk,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: the walk of shame, did the walk of shame from
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: the stall to the attendant. I approached him and I
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: had the expression of a man requesting political asylum. Senor!
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: He looked at me and just kind of snickered. He
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: looked back, and the toilet paper, I gestured yes. I pointed.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: I said, I need that. That's a guy that can
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: score some points. And so my language is a combination
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: of broken Spanish and interpretive English. So this guy understood.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Of course he understood. He worked in a bathroom. He
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: was probably the 400th time, it was probably the 400th,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: 500th time that someone had asked him for toilet paper.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: He handed me a couple of tissues. He said, here,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: knock yourself out with the tissues. I said, thank you
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: very much. I'll open a gas station. I'll pretend to
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: be a gas station guy and all that. And let's
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: just say that was not a good idea. You look
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: pretty hot, not a good idea. Of course, you look
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: at the whole situation. And my lack of vocabulary. The
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: lack of proper preparation. All of those variables. All of
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: those variables. Was the woman who was celebrating her birthday comfortable?
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Probably not. Was it the worst bathroom experience in my
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: adult life? It immediately entered the championship conversation along with
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Buffalo and Cleveland. And then I washed my hands. And
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: I washed them again. And I washed them one more time.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: I did. I used enough soap to clean a small
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: fleet of commercial fishing boats at that point. And I
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: wanted to wash my entire body. I wanted a pressure wash.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: I wanted a hazmat team. Boy, a lot of wants here.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: A lot of wants. Centers for the Disease Control established
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: a temporary field office. So there was that. So there
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: was that. I wanted my bidet. And man, how I
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: wanted my bidet, I did. At home, I have modern
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: plumbing technology. Here, where I was in Mexico, I had
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: two pieces of tissue and a prayer. It was like
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: going from a Bentley to a horse-drawn wagon. So that
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: horse-drawn carriage slash wagon will likely eventually get you to
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: where you need to go. However, it is not nearly
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: as comfortable as a Bentley, so I am told. From
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: a smartphone to a carrier pigeon. Yikes. From a flamethrower
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: to get a couple rocks to start a barbecue. Rather
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: than use the matches of the flamethrower, let's just crank
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: up the barbecue. Got a couple rocks. Why not? So
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: progress has been... reversed centuries of technological advancement have been
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: erased in one bathroom stall. And the worst part, nobody
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: else cared. I emerged from the restroom, emotionally damaged. The
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: wrestling continued. The people cheered. A woman flew around the ring.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: The crowd roared. Life went on. And I stood there
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: contemplating the fragility of human beings. All right. Now the,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Next chapter, chapter eight, the great escape. The great escape.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: We made our way down the stairs. Seven flights. Seven
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: flights of stairs. Going down, obviously much easier. Although I
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: remained suspicious of the building. I no longer trusted anyone
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: about it. The stairs had betrayed me. The souvenir shop
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: had attempted to bankrupt me the bathroom and tried to
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: destroy my dignity so those are all some of the
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: uh the things uh and listen it is it is
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: an issue and somehow i had enjoyed the experience the
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: crowd was wonderful the wrestling was not the greatest i'd
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: ever seen but it was entertaining The atmosphere was unlike
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: anything I'd experienced in American sporting culture. Outside of the arena,
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: the streets were alive. Vendors everywhere, masks here, shirts there, hats, souvenirs, food, people, noise.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: We found late-night tacos, and the tacos were amazing. Absolutely amazing.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: Not my kind. They weren't gringo tacos, but for soft tacos,
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: next level. Next level. And this is the great contradiction
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: of travel. You spend half the time complaining about things.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: The transportation, the crowds, the language barrier, the stairs, the plumbing.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: Then you go home. And those are the stories you
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: end up telling. These are the stories. Nobody wants to
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: hear about the perfectly functioning hotel elevator or the team
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: that always listens to their coach and runs up the score.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Nobody wants a 15-minute sob story about a bathroom that
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: had adequate toilet paper. Just doesn't happen. All right. Anyway,
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: I did want to thank the people involved in this.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: We have one more chapter, but I want to thank
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: the wife, her friends, Ashley and Jen. But now it's
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: on to Chapter 9. Chapter 9. As you know, we
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: mostly travel not for entertainment purposes. because we love the
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: stories that we can tell on the podcast. The disasters
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: become memories. Inconveniences become the highlights. The humiliation becomes podcast material,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: which is what we're all about. In my case, the
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: humiliation involved an international restroom emergency. So what I did
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: learn from my long weekend in Mexico City, first of all,
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: the people could not have been nicer. Just wonderful. It's
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: a remarkable place. The history, the architecture, the food, the people,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: the energy, all of that stuff, the enthusiasm. It's a massive,
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: fascinating city, and it just is. Now, despite my initial concerns,
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: the trip was a lot more enjoyable than I expected.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: I did learn that my Spanglish vocabulary is wildly inadequate.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: I had been operating under the assumption that living in
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Southern California qualified me as an honorary bilingual citizen. Unfortunately,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: it does not. Knowing how to order a burrito in
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: Los Angeles, knowing how to order a burrito in Los Angeles, well,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: it does not mean that you can navigate a conversation
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: with an Uber driver in Mexico City. And I learned
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: that the harder way. So thank goodness for Jen and Ashley,
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: the friends of ours, my wife and me. And without them,
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: my wife and I still might be standing on a
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: street corner trying to explain where we wanted to go.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: And third, the altitude matters. 7,350 feet, not a suggestion. Now,
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: if you're a professional athlete in great shape, I don't
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: think it's that big a deal. And it certainly doesn't
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: give you an unfair advantage because the Broncos haven't won
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: that many Super Bowls, the Rockies, the Nuggets, et cetera,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: the Avalanche. Now, the Avalanche and Nuggets have had some success.
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: It's been a while for most everyone else. But the
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: physical reality is that when you climb seven flights of
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: stairs at that elevation, your body will remind you that
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: you are no longer 25 years old. You're not. So
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: my lungs sent a strongly worded letter. Condemnation. My knees
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: retained legal counsel. My heart threatened to terminate our working relationship.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: And always the fourth thing is always inspect the toilet
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: paper situation. before you sit down. And this is how
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: a personal commandment for me, it's become a personal commandment.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: It's my personal commandment. Forget the 10 commandments. I'm proposing
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: an 11th commandment. Thou shalt shall verify the availability of
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: bathroom tissue before conducting business. It should be printed on
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: every passport, every airline boarding pass, every travel brochure. Just
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: here's the bathroom situation. Here's the toilet paper situation, all that.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Because once you have been trapped in a public restroom
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: without toilet paper, you never look at the world quite
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: the same way. You don't. And finally, I confirm something
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: about myself. I can say without any doubt, I am
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: not an adventurous traveler. I will never be that guy.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: You're not that guy, pal. You're not that guy who
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: casually announces he's backpacking through the Andes with nothing but
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: a toothbrush and a positive attitude. That's not how I'm wired.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I like my routines. I'm a creature of habit. I
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: like where I live, the Ballard Mansion. I like my
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: dog Moxie. I like knowing that when I walk into
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: my bathroom, there will be toilet paper and a bidet,
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: especially the bidet. And I'm glad I went. My wife
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: had a wonderful time as far as I, you know,
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: what she told me. Jen and Ashley seemed like they
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: were having a good time. Terrific travel companions and great
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: and all that. And we saw things I never would
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: have seen otherwise. We ate. Some really good food. We
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: experienced a great wrestling venue. I say great loosely. It's historic.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: And I came home with enough material for several episodes
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: of the Fifth Hour Podcast, at least two. Would I
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: go back? I would. Absolutely, I'd go back. The next
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: time I go back, I'm making a few adjustments. I'm
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: going to learn more Spanish. I'm going to prepare for
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: the Altitude Tour. And I'm going to remember to purchase
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: these souvenirs, again, outside the arena. Much cheaper, bigger supply.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: Much cheaper, bigger supply. And I'm also going to carry
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: an emergency supply of toilet paper. Not just a little pack.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Not a couple of tissues. The entire effing roll. The
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: entire roll. Possibly two. I'll put one in my pocket,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: one in my backpack, maybe another in my suitcase... And
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: people will think I'm smuggling paper products across international borders,
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: and I don't give a rat's ass, because there's a
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: moment in every man's life when he realizes what truly matters.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: For some men, it's family. For some, it's career. For others,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: it's financial security. For me, it's standing in the wrestling arena,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: restroom in Mexico City, and it was a simple come-to-Jesus moment.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: You can have all the money in the world, You
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: can travel to exotic destinations. You can experience the incredible
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: different cultures of the world. You can climb through seven
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: flights of stairs at 7,350 feet. But when you're sitting
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: on a toilet and there's no toilet paper, you're just
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: another helpless schmuck. And no amount of Spanglish is going
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: to save you. So viva Mexico and God bless indoor plumbing.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: We had a few bonus stories that we're going to
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: save for the Saturday pod. We're way too long on this.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: So enjoy your day. We'll have more Mallard travel log
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: stories on the next episode of this, the Fifth Hour podcast.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: So as my friend Dick and Dayton would say, bye-bye, bye-bye.