‘Pinche Chilangos!’ ..I moaned!
…The truth is my spanish is shit! It is utter garbage! While it is not entirely non-existent, it is just plain and simply shitty! However, three hours into arriving in one of the most populated cities in the world, I experienced a linguistic breakthrough albeit catalysed by an unfortunate event.
“No Mames!”… I screamed frantically grabbing my pockets, eyes bulging in a blend horror and angst. …”Pinche Chilangos! No Mames, Guey! “ I continued and sealed the curse!
Picture the dumbfounded visages in that train car, with mine the most distinct in hue. On one hand, there were the faces shocked at how Chilango-like the accent in my curses’ tongue had pierced the air and on the other, there was my face mourning the loss of an extension of my ‘SELF’. I had been liberated from my precious iPhone.
The irony of it all is that from the moment I descended into the subway underground, on my way to Zocalo, I acknowledged to myself that the conditions were prime and perfect for anybody to be pick pocketed, especially me, the eager visitor whose perceptions were tuned in to all the novelties, therefore distracted. It was about 4 pm and the trains were pouring over at every station. I in fact had a nerdy statistics hard-on when I thought to myself how interesting it would be if the percentage of people with communicable illnesses was almost equal to the number of occupational pickpockets in every train car at any given time. And how shitty it would be to catch the flu from the same person that picks your pocket. I even chuckled when I thought that a foreigner such as myself must have been like a game of Pokemon GO for a pickpocket.
For as long as I incubated my medley of thoughts, I exercised extra caution. Sometimes a bit too dramatic as I changed trains clutching desperately at my pockets and hugging worrisomely at my backpack. I thought of BBC’s, Conor Woodman’s SCAM CITY; a television serious founded on unearthing the most prevalent of scams in popular tourist destinations. Predictably, pick pocketing reigns supreme in swindle kingdom. To accompany those thoughts, my eyes darted back and forth endeavoring to savor the sight of a hand in action.
Suddenly, there was some unnecessary aggressive shoving and pushing at the Pino Suarez subway station while boarding the blue line to Zocalo. I raised my hands in the air, gesturing my American goodwill in the peaceful transcendence into every and all spaces as my precious iPhone ascended from my pockets. How stupid was that! Word of advise, if a situation looks like a pig, its probably a pig. I knew what was happening but somehow I convinced myself that I had a bias worth muting. I even looked at the bitch that did it in the eye as she retreated from boarding the train, thinking, yeah good idea, this is a mess! It happened so fast! It infuriated me! I sneezed! It was poetic! And now I sit with a sense of liberation that has been long estranged from my ‘SELF’.
A sense of liberation that was bought by a communion of mezcal and tacos coupled with an audit of pequeña hardships and pequeña blessings of my iPhone-less state. I took out a piece of paper and said to myself, “well, I guess now I’ve got to write shit down. ” Undoubtedly, in the 24 hours that have passed, I have enjoyed looking at the different aspects of my personality through my handwriting. I have scribbled a lot of meaningful and meaningless things. I have scribbled on receipts, on the back of my hand and I think I almost scribbled on a spare tortilla at a taco stand. I stopped myself short after considering foldability.
Not having a cellphone means that I had been stripped off my Uber superpowers. Now I am forced to power up my shitty Spanish and haggle with drivers in a taxi industry that is riddled with unregulated operators. On the upside, I cannot hide behind my Black Mirror for the next 8 or so days. And I have to be cognizant of directions, time and my surroundings in general. There is no precision to my sense of direction or time at the moment and there need not be. I am neither here nor there and the time is not now. I can best sum up my spatial disposition as an approximate actuality. For example, I am writing this from a taco stand in La Condesa. 3 tacos in with 2 left to go. I am approximately 150 pesos ( my willingness to pay as a function of my perceived distance ) by taxi to my next destination: Somewhere in Polanco where I intend to continue illuminating the night with La Comida y las Bebidas. The food and the drinks: The chief of all my reasons to visit Mexico this time around.
The inconvenience of not having a phone means that I am liberated form the persuasions of the barrage of notifications I suffer on an hourly basis. Not having a phone means that my first instinct is to experience and reflect rather than capture and share.
Pinche Chilangos, Gracias!!
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