December 30, 2002

soy el blanco (i´m the

soy el blanco (i´m the target)
or
which is a worse enemy, blogger.com or young boys on bicycles?

so i wrote what i´m about to retype and blogger managed to lose it. here goes again.

it´s a beautiful day, i´ve spent the whole morning talking to some really cool (is it possible?) canadians (jk) who work for ngo´s that are involved in fair trade work, and i´m on my way to meet anthony to go get lunch. 5 meters in front of the internet cafe where we´ve planned to meet, i step off the curb cause two fatasses are blocking it. de repente, as they say in spanish, a young boy on a bicycles crashes into the back of me. he goes down, and i ask him if he´s ok. skinned elbow. i had felt a prick on my right foot, so i look down. blood wells up from two fleshwounds. the chainring had managed to pierce two pretty good gashes into the flat part of my foot, maybe a centimeter deep each.
i hop over to the cafe and anthony comes out. ¨fuck.¨ he says. i limp back to the hostel, and go to wash my foot with soap in the bathtub. meanwhile rosita calls the red cross ambulance, and much to my embarrassment, i get an ambulance ride to the red cross center, to get puntos (stitches). number of countries i´ve now had ambulance rides in: 3. we get there and the nice doctor shoots my foot full of a local anasthetic, and gives me four stitches. anthony and i marvel at the collection of fetuses in jars of formaldahyde, they had them in all stages of development, it was almost like a collection, definitely not something you´d see in a doctor´s office in the u.s. another thing you´d be hard pressed to find in an american medical facility is a badass doctor who only charged me 40 pesos, that´s right 4 bucks or a dollar a stitch. anthony and i figured it would have cost me upwards of 200 bucks in the u.s., hell, my stitches from last summer cost 900 bucks and the guy did a mediocre job, hence the cool and (hehe) tough looking scar above my left eyebrow. plus i got to watch, as much as i could stand, the doc put the stitches in, which i couldn´t do up in alaska cause they had no mirror and thought it semi weird.
kinda screws up my day, eh? i can´t seem to go 6 months without a doctor´s visit, be it for sprained ankles, flesh wounds, bike crashes, or getting hit by cars and bicycles. my (admittedly useful) drastic injury with it´s $5000 deductable was of no help, but i guess i´m still glad i have it. with luck i´ll be back in the u.s. (wait a minute, maybe not, it´s damn expensive up there) the next time i manage to whack myself.
what also is a bummer is that instead of getting to go out tomorrow, new years eve, and dance, i´ll be left few options besides going to the disco party they´re throwing at anthony´s work and sitting in a chair watching everyone, not even able to drink cause i´m on painkillers and antibiotics. as the modest mouse song goes, shit luck. oh well, no more complaining.
ok lets see if this mofo will post this time. control- c to copy first, not taking any chances. i remembered that drew mentioned something about a bike trip, hope he´s having a good time and doesn´t get stabbed by his chainring.
fingers crossed.

Posted by bendan at December 30, 2002 01:43 PM | TrackBack
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