We are walking on a tree-lined course through among Mexico City’s spiffiest communities when I feel dampness on the back of my neck.
The liquid on my hand, on my hair, on my neck, and all over my t-shirt, is brown. This was either a big bird with severe intestinal issues or the time has actually certainly gotten here when pigs fly.
Two ladies concern our help, proffering tissues and wipes. While my better half scrubs at my t-shirt, among the ladies scrubs at my better half’s t-shirt, which has actually likewise been sullied.
We thank the ladies a lot, shake our fists at the hidden pájaro and reverse towards our buddies’ home to alter clothing. En path, we pick up a coffee to go.
At a market a number of blocks later on, my better half recognizes her wallet is gone. We figure she left it at the café. While I return to examine, the bank alerts my better half that it has decreased an effort to utilize her charge card to purchase a TELEVISION.
Wow, initially a bird poops on us, now somebody has actually discovered my better half’s wallet and attempted to utilize her card. This was not what we wanted when we chose to spend spring break in Mexico City.
My better half calls our buddies to inform them what’s taken place. A comparable thing befell them in Buenos Aires: 1. A bird pooped on them; 2. a passerby assisted clean them up; 3. they understood among their wallets was gone.
Welcome to the Bird Poop Scam.
Once you learn about it, you can’t think you succumbed to it. It all appears so apparent in hindsight:
- The liquid neither looked nor smelled like any bird poop I had actually come across in the past. (On the other hand, this was my very first see to Mexico City. Ornithology is outdoors my locations of competence. Maybe the birds in CDMX stuff themselves on brown berries.)
- The ladies emerged instantly after our dousing. And what a coincidence, they had simply the cleansing materials we required. (Maybe they were baby-sitters, on their method to work.)
If there was an intense side to the bird poop rip-off it was that rather of 2 bad things taking place back-to-back – getting weary on, then losing a wallet – there had actually been just one bad thing. The phony poop – most likely some safe mixture introduced from a spray bottle – and the selecting of my better half’s pocket while we were inhabited with the clean-up were all one occurrence.
Lest you believe this is a Mexico thing or a Latin America thing, when I returned to the home I googled “bird poop scam” and discovered that getting “help” from friendly residents after a spattering is a staple of numerous sites dedicated to take a trip rip-off cautions worldwide.
Knowing how typical this criminal offense is need to have made me feel much better. It made me feel even worse. As a native New Yorker and veteran tourist, I like to consider myself as streetwise.
In Rome years earlier, 2 males attempted to tempt me into a fancy plan including a phony diamond and genuine money. I was 23 and taking a trip abroad for the very first time however I understood, prior to I even comprehended what was taking place, not to hand a heap of money to a complete stranger.
Maybe I’ve resided in State College too long.
The bird poop occurrence strengthened my belief that contemporary life all over, with its broadening spaces in between haves and have-nots and its screw-the-the-other-guy-before-the-other-guy-screws-you principles, is the genuine offender, not these 2 ladies, who most likely have no good alternatives.
The next day, however, we went to the magnificent Museo Nacional de Antropología, which narrates wave after wave of warring and marauding individuals, culminating, naturally, in the arrival of the Spaniards, who were even much better at warring and marauding than the native population. We’re a bad lot, we people, constantly have actually been.
But I still think that if we modified our socioeconomic system so that real estate cost a little less and individuals with the lowest-paying jobs made a little bit more, there would be less desperation, less envy and less factor to enhance our lot at another individual’s expense.
Seeing workers and champagne drinkers juxtaposed in Diego Rivera’s “Man, Controller of the Universe” mural at the Palacio de Bellas Artes strengthened my view.
The night of the bird poop rip-off was to be the last moon of winter season. To mark the celebration, we signed up with a group kayaking through the narrow waterways separating Mexico City’s chinampas, or drifting islands.
The celebrations started with an ancient event including 3 dancers in feathered headdresses who waved incense burners over each people in a routine of filtration. After the day we had, we required it.
Then the moon increased red and fruity, we consumed tamales on a flatboat, and drifted through the dark back to marvelous, awful civilization.
