Near-Death in Mexico City, Part 1

We are fairly evenly matched. Generally speaking, he’s funnier, and I’m nicer. He’s the more natural wordsmith, but I have more time to finesse. He’s more direct, but I am more precise—especially when it comes to typing skills. He’s smarter, but I work harder. You’ll have to decide for yourself which of us is more accurate as we collaborate in the telling of the time we almost died in Mexico City.

His Side:

Things could not have gone better in Puerto Vallarta.  The weather was beautiful, we saw a whale, and Courtney proposed to me. (That last part may have been the other way around; my memory fails me sometimes.)

Needless to say, it was a trip to paradise.

But, like many major events in my life, every time something is going so well, it is just a matter of time before it bursts into flames, causing me to lament my perfect event by channeling Don Adams in Get Smart and declaring, “Missed it by that much!” The perfection peak in which the week rose to should have tipped me off that something was about to go terribly wrong.  Instead, I blindly and happily strolled hand-in-hand with my new fiancée into the day that I almost died in Mexico City.

I’ve always been curious about Mexico City.  It is one of the places we talk about in sixth grade social studies and I have always wanted to experience the rich history and culture of the crowning jewel of the entire country.  I was a little bummed that we were only able to see the airport this time, especially since we learned pretty early on after arrival that we had a fairly significant delay for our flight.  We were so close to a great day trip in the city and yet so far.  

We decided to make the best of it and do some shopping right there in the airport.

Naturally, since we were in Mexico, we ended up at a duty-free shop.  I got a great deal on some very nice tequila, but unfortunately because of some weird policy thing we had to cut our visit short to make our purchases in time to get them delivered to our flight.  The good news was that it appeared that our flight delay was proceeding as previously promised, or so I thought.

We rushed over to the waiting area of our gate and quickly realized that our delay was not in fact over.  We sat there for at least another hour or two, maybe more.  While we were waiting, we began to notice that our flight was going to be packed.  Before long our waiting area was full, as was the surrounding area. How could we tell they were all going to be on our flight? The Cowboys apparel, mostly. 

To keep our sanity, Courtney and I created a game called “Least Desirable Seatmate”. 

The first few rounds went as one would expect.  The usual XXXL guys, smelly people or those who seemed like they might be, mothers with screaming kids. There was no true front-runner until The Bob Show arrived.

I don’t know anything about The Bob Show, but every one of the rather large party had it written on their matching black shirts. We forgot about the game for a while and tried to figure out what this was all about.  Most members of the group were teenagers.  From all the large black boxes they had with them, it appeared to be some kind of tv show or video thing, possibly a youth group, maybe religious.

We never got to the bottom of the mystery because when we saw what appeared to be the chaperones of the group, we snapped back into “who’s the most annoying” mode. We knew instantly that we were staring at the clear winners of our new favorite airport pastime.

Courtney chose her winner first. Her choice made total sense because of her sensitivity to sound. This “Bob” was loud. Very loud.  He spent the countless minutes waiting for the plane complaining about everything and talking about several people he had recently gotten into fights with, including all the details, like the choice names that he called these people both to their faces and behind their backs, and all this was shared at decibels that we did not know could come out of a human body. From this point forward, we referred to her pick for the person she would least want to sit next to as Loud Angry Bob.  

It also did not take long for me to find my pick; conveniently, he was also a Bob and was Loud Angry Bob’s partner in conversation.