A Day in the Life

I sit at my desk most days and look over the ocean.  From my desk I can see my Quicken spreadsheets and schools of fish breaking through the waves while pelicans dive for their dinner.

 

“You got room? Tonight you got room?”

“Yes” I say jumping up. “Yes, we got room.” I break out in broken English or broken Spanish while Italians, Francophones or Germans ask for lodging.

 

“Your English good”, they say “where you learn it?” I didn’t learn it, it’s my language I want to yell – I just can’t speak it anymore I spend my days talking in gibberish, hand signals and Engspanglish.  I understand most conversations I overhear in Spanish, Italian, French and German yet at the same time I feel like most everything I say in English or Spanish I say only for myself.  My employees and children just pretending they didn’t hear if it’s not something they want to hear.

 

Of course sometimes I have to pretend I don’t hear.  On day a couple watched the sunset into the ocean and came to my desk asking what time the sunrise was.  “The sunrise?”  “Yeah, what time do we have to get up to watch the sunrise over the ocean.” Well obviously the sun will rise, go to the center of the sky, change its mind and set in the same spot.  So I answered “Well if you start driving now you’ll be able to see it rise on the Caribbean Coast.”

But the thing I hear the most is, “You must love it here.” Every American tourist says the same thing.  The other nationalities don’t.  It’s only the Americans who only have 7 days vacation who dream about living in the tropics forever. It will be perfect.

 

“I love it most of the time” I say because I’m horribly honest.

 

“What do you mean?  Most of the time?”   Only a tourist wouldn’t understand, can’t understand. 

 

So I answer, “Things are different when you live here, but it’s a great place for a vacation.”

I don’t say “I’m trying to balance the books and this year is 20% down on last year and last year sucked, tourism has been wrecked by the economic slowdown you moron and you’d know that if you watched the news. It wasn’t’ just the US that was affected, your little crisis is still crippling the rest of the world.” I don’t say “The municipality is a bunch of bureaucratic criminals; they just raised the price of my liquor license 6000% and are insisting I put in handicapped facilities that are costing me in excess of $4000.” I don’t say “I’d love to sell because but I can’t because the municipality hasn’t renewed my concession on the land.  And because I can’t sell I am missing the last years of life my parents have.”

 

I can’t say any of this, so I turn and point at the ocean, the fisherman is on his way back through the waves with his small boat and the sun is dropping down to kiss the sea and I say “What’s not to love?  What more could one want?”