Hola, Gringo

I’m in Puerto Rico this week, and I can tell from the reaction I am getting from the locals that they aren’t aware that a celebrity is in their midst.  Don’t get me wrong, everybody has been friendly and helpful.  It’s just that, you know, sometimes it’s nice when you get, ummm, recognized.

One thing that has been a bit disturbing is how everyone around here just presumes I’m a gringo.  Hey, I could be Puerto Rican, Latin American, Caribbean, or some other “ethnic” being.  Why you gotta take one look and make me out to be a gringo?  One joint was particularly guilty of this.  I walk into a restaurant with my girl and they seat us, handing us these menus in English.  Now you know damn well that they have Spanish menus there.  They didn’t even ask, man, they just gave us the gringo menus.  Problem is, we know all the local foods by their Spanish names so we’re looking at this menu and trying to figure out the English translation for Mofongo, or for Bistek.  Can’t find it – so when a waiter passes by I ask him “menu en espanol, por favor?”.  Yo – the dude says “oh for her?”  What the **** is up with that?  Why can’t the Spanish menu be for me?  Why does it have to be for my lady and not for me?  Why do you have to assume I’m the gringo?  But it gets worse.  He brings the Spanish menu (one menu, mind you, because he figures there’s no way I’m going to be needing one) and everything starts to make sense to us.  We can see all the dishes we are used to and that we came there for.  So then our waiter comes.  Now keep in mind that on both the English and Spanish menus, each item has a number next to the name and description.  Using the “Spanish menu” I figure out what I want, so I tell the waiter “vaca frita, por favor”.  The dude says “you want number 39?”.  No you *******, I want vaca frita!  What, the gringo can’t speak Spanish? 

Here’s the deal – this was some serious comedy, man.  What I am telling you is all true.  And I was a bit taken aback by the whole thing, but I love me some Puerto Rican people and we got a real good laugh about all of this.  The food was awesome and the people, despite making all these assumptions about me, were cool.  People are funny, man, you just gotta love it.

 

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I’m going to be a CC

I think I want to become a compassionate conservative.  I think that compassionate conservatives have shown us how great they can make the world.  Maybe if I became a CC, I could really make life better for everyone around me.  What do you think?

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