Doobage

One of the nights we were in Mexico, we went to a fiesta at some hacienda in the hills. The general procedure is for a bunch of tourists to pile aboard the bus, drive into the hinterlands at the complete mercy of the bus driver, eat, drink, listen to a bunch of music, and then return to the hotel on the bus.

It was actually a lot of fun. The food was really quite good (I was particularly pleased with the chili relleno) and the music and dancing were good enough that the abundance of drinks more than made up for any lapses in performance.

But during the festivities someone did something that puzzles me to this day. Was it an act of cheeky savoir-faire, or bone-headed stupidity? I'm tempted to say the former, but I've seen too many of those "Locked Up Abroad" shows on TV for it to seem like anything but complete lunacy. During dinner someone at the next table over produced a pretty burly marijuana cigarette and lit up on the spot. At first I didn't think that's what it was - surely nobody would smoke out in public, in a country where drug-related crimes are punished pretty severely, surely it must be a handrolled cigarette. But you don't pass handrolled cigarettes to your chums, and handrolled cigarettes don't have that characteristic burning-sock smell unless they're rolled out of something other than plain old tobacco.

Fortunately I was well along in my attempt to drink them clean of margaritas and was not seriously discommoded by this happenstance. It was only later that I started to worry somewhat for the welfare of those people, who either must have gone to the incredibly foolhardy length of smuggling pot into Mexico, or buying it on the street in Mexico, neither of which seem to be activities with good long-term odds of success.

So what's the dumbest thing you've ever done on a vacation? My act of wanton stupidity was roughing up a Russian soldier in Siberia. Though I can't say I really all that worried about it - the little shit was drunker than I was - I was still tempted to drop to my knees and plant a big wet kiss on the tarmac of the airport in Helsinki when we finally landed.