The Headless Columnist (Cigar Smoke 10-7-10)

Hey, what have you guys been up to? I’ve been sitting on Mr. Right Buttock and Mr. Left Buttock trying to remember what the symptoms are for shingles and rickets. I don’t think I have either of those maladies, but I never can remember what they are, and I always look up their meanings, and then I forget what the hell they mean. This cycle has been going on since 1974. And you thought you had problems.

Anyway, I was thinking there might be a new disease called shickets when Marge said, “What are we going to do for our 20th anniversary?” And I said, “When is it?” And that’s when the shickets hit the fan. No, no. I’m just kidding. Even I’m not that dumb. I said, “Honey Pumpkin Snuggle Face, what do you want to do?” And she said since it was our 20th anniversary she was thinking of China. And I said, “You want to go to China?” And she said, “No. Maybe you could go. On a slow boat. I know a good travel agent.”

I was kind of hurt so I mentioned that our marriage had outlasted my first marriage, which had lasted a measly 15 years. And that if she dumped me now, it would probably take me at least five years to fool someone else into matrimonial bliss, and then I would have to try to stay married to them for 25 years to break the record, but to do that I would have to live until I was 100 to make that happen. And I’d probably get shingles or rickets and not make it.

Anyway again, Marge sighed that getting-heavier-every-year-of-marriage sigh and out of nowhere said, “Why don’t we go to Cabo? I’ve never been to Cabo.” And I said, “Isn’t Cabo in Mexico, Sweet Snookums Smore’s Face?” She sighed so loudly over this question that she scared Archie the Airedale and he actually moved, something he rarely does.

I cautiously mentioned that I thought Cabo had not been moved lately and could very well still be in Mexico and I gently asked if she knew that the drug lords and the corrupt cops and the bought-off military thugs were fighting for the right to cut the heads off of arrogant gringos such as myself and myself’s spouse. She said she knew all that but she was remembering when we went down to Ensenada a number of years ago and had that incredible grilled lobster and then went into this little crummy bar and we were the only ones in the place (except for the health department inspectors) and that we drank Margaritas and washed them down with Dos Equis before the Most Interesting Man in the World was even born.

Just that one never-ending sentence brought back a lot of memories. God, I remember stumbling out of the bar and going back to our room in a flirty-frolicking kind of way and falling onto the bed and asking Marge if she would like to have the most earth-shattering, temple-busting, sweaty sexy sex she’d ever had, or would she like to make love to me. And I remember when she said, “Neither.” And I remember watching her go into the bathroom and I remember how daintily she hugged the toilet and recycled the margaritas and the Dos Equis. Ah, the memories.

So I was getting a haircut the other day and I mentioned the Cabo idea to my barber, Steve, who is of Mexican heritage and has owned a Chihuahua and has been known to pull back a few Tecates when he wasn’t butchering someone’s hair. (I kid my barber of Mexican descent.) And Steve said something like, “Hey, Cabron de Stupido, I’m Mexican and I won’t go down there. After they cut your head off they’re going to put it on a big stick and roast it over a burning trash barrel while they sing La Cucaracha.” And then he said in his entrepreneurial way, “And, of course, without your head, you wouldn’t be coming in as often to get haircuts.”

I related this thoughtful information to Marge, but she still wants to go. So, we are going down to Cabo, dammit. And we’re going to have fun, or as they say in Baja, “Vaya con Dios, and get el liquored uppo,” and we will celebrate our 20th anniversary and look death right in its cowardly eye and spit a tequila worm in its cowardly face and step on its cowardly toes and laugh loud like bajanian bonteros or Antonio Banderas and then run like hell and shoot back at them over our shoulders.

And you know what were going to do for our 25th anniversary? Well, I found out for you. I asked Marge and she said those three little words (plus one extra word) I love to hear, “How about North Korea?”