Luxuries I Missed While in Brazil - Part 2

It’s so tough to write something like this without sounding b*tchy or otherwise ungrateful for all of the good things that I experienced in my most recent trip to Brazil. So, as I did in Part One , I’ll start off with a disclaimer:

My wife’s family is still awesome and seemingly still dedicated to making my stay as pleasurable as possible. For this, I am extremely and sincerely grateful. I truly am. In hindsight, I’ll admit that the problem was almost definitely with ME and not them. I grew up in the greatest country in the world (…at least in my opinion) and I've enjoyed all of the spoils that go along with it. So yeah, thirty days in Brazil kinda took a toll on me. Everybody’s got their threshold and everybody hits their limit at some point.

Regrettably, when this happens to me, it gets tougher for me to remain a gracious guest. So each day, I kept having to remind myself that I was, in fact, a guest in another country. Who knows? Maybe in a way, writing this out is therapeutic because it allows me to summarize the various frustrations that I don't feel at liberty to vent while I'm there. And before my ranting begins, this isn't so much a list of "Luxuries Missed" as the title would imply.

No, Part Two is more like, "Here's me whining again like a little b*tch." I admit it.

Having said that, let's proceed, shall we?

HEAT: Not only did this trip mark my longest stay in Brazil to date (30 days), but we (wife, daughter and I) went down there during some of the hottest months that Brazil has to offer. Thirty days of blistering heat wound up being just a bit too much for my system to endure without cracking the veneer in a few spots. As stated above, even the many well-meaning gestures of magnanimity doled out for my benefit started to wear me down a bit when my polite refusals weren’t immediately acknowledged. I'll expatiate.

KNOWING WHEN TO QUIT: Here’s one difference between your average American and the majority of my in-lawed Brazilian family members. When an American offers you something to eat and you respond by saying, “No thanks, I’m fine,” That’s usually the end of the conversation. The aforementioned American might put the offer back on the table at a later time, but that’s about as far as he'll go.

When somebody down in Brazil offered me something that I didn’t want, I usually had to turn them down about five or six times and even then, they didn’t completely give up. My five or six “no” responses to various offers of food or other services generally convinced the one making the offer that I either didn’t understand the offer or that I would accept it if offered by someone else.

Here’s a sample conversation to drive the point home. In this example, the magnanimous Brazilian family member is A and I’m B:

A: “Bill, would you like some pizza?”

B: “Oh, thank you, but I’m not really hungry right now.”

A: “Do you want some?”

B: “No, but thank you anyway. I really don’t have any room for pizza. But thank you.”

A: “We got you some pizza. Why don’t you come into the kitchen and have some?”

B: “I appreciate your offer, but here again, I really, really don’t have any room for pizza, so I can’t have a piece. But again, thank you.”

A: “It doesn't have any onions on it.”

B: “Oh, no. It's not an onion issue. I'm just stuffed. Thank you though.”

A: “I’ll get you a plate and put a couple of pieces on there for you.”

B: “And I do appreciate that. However I really, really, TRULY can’t imagine fitting as much as a grape in here right now, so thank you, but I just can’t eat anything right now.”

A: “Tati, tell him that we got pizza for him. I don’t think he understands what I’m saying.”

When it happens once or twice, it’s actually kind of funny. When it happens several times a day for thirty straight days, blood starts trickling from my ears. On the plus side of things, I actually heard two Brazilians engage in a conversation just like this in Week 3, so apparently, it’s not just me anymore.

I suppose that if I want to drive home the message in under five questions, I just have to say, “Obrigado, mas não quero.” Which means, “Thanks, but I don’t want any.” By saying that you don’t WANT it as opposed to you can’t fit it or can’t see yourself possibly eating another bite, you’ll probably knock down the rate of questions to two or three before the message is clear. My favorite is my mother-in-law, who seems to require a profound answer to every spoken question, thought or observation in order to not wind up repeating herself several times.

Quick Side Story: My wife’s driving one day, I’m in the passenger side and my mother-in-law’s in the backseat holding my daughter (car seats aren’t required in Brazil – more on that later). She pointed out my wife’s old college (something she does at least once every time I’m down there). So, I kinda grunted my acknowledgment because I was tired. Though slightly different words were used each subsequent time, she managed to say the same thing two more times before I found myself forced to remind her that she points this college out to me every time I’m in Brazil and, at this point, I could probably find my wife's alma mater faster than I could find my own bathroom.

EVERYTHING’S A F**KING CONVERSATION: The meaning of the term “double-standard” was never so accurately illustrated than it was during my time in Brazil. My wife, God bless her heart, sees nothing strange about waking me up at 8:00am and expecting me to be dressed and ready to go out the door at 8:01am to do whatever it is that we need to do. So, I’ve gotten accustomed to being ready in like three minutes and by that third minute, I’m literally out the door and ready to roll.

The problem is that I’m the only one held to this three minute blitz.

For everybody else, they can’t seem to drive from one end of the street to the other without having a 15 minute conversation. It seems like every simple move requires a f**king committee to gather on the street and discuss things that won’t even come close to happening for weeks. I get my ass kicked out of bed as if the place were on fire, then I’m roasting out in the hot sun, waiting for everybody else to have their say so that we can go.

And I love how everybody’s always late for everything. Before I married my wife, she told me that Brazilians are infamous for being late, which is why her urgency to get me out of bed kinda puzzles me sometimes. What good does it do for me to turbo charge my engine if I'm racing a bunch of turtles?

The logic eludes me.

EVERYBODY’S GOT LOUD-ASS BARKING DOGS: Every morning in Brazil, I woke to the sounds of five dogs in a barking war. I went out to somebody’s house and if they didn’t have a barking dog, their neighbor did. There are leashless dogs walking the streets during the day and as I tried to sleep at night, I had to endure feverish arguments by dogs who really should have been off the streets and, you know, in school or something.

I'd been staying in a city called São Bernardo do Campo during my vacation in Brazil, but for my brother-in-law’s wedding, we had to take a ten hour bus ride out to the other side of the state in a hick town called Pacaembu (...pronounced: puck-KAIM-boo). I figured, “Well, at least I’ll get a break from the f**king dogs.”

No such luck.

Dogs are everywhere there, too! And damn it, they got something to say…. loudly. But believe it or not, the dogs weren't the things that bugged me the most in Pacaembu.

INSECTS AND REPTILES: Ever see “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom?” Remember that scene where Indy and Shortround are trapped inside of that cave with the spiked walls that were closing in on them, all the while that whiny blonde was freakin’ out about the creepy crawlies all around her? Well, there weren’t any moving, spiked walls to deal with, but I sure got the lion’s share of creepy crawlies.

My poor mother-in-law lives in a small house that's just full of little insects, harmless though they may be. The bathroom’s a haven for various types of flies and spiders. The kitchen, TV room and bedroom all have ants f**king everywhere, which really puts a damper on things like, you know, dinner and sleeping.

One evening, I had a small Dixie cup with some Coke in it. I drank the Coke and left the cup on the computer table (in the bedroom). Since I don’t regularly lick Dixie cups clean of all liquid, there were a couple of drops of Coke left in the cup. Next morning, there were about 4,000 ants crawling all over, inside and around the damn thing. My mother-in-law is operating under the delusion that, had I not left “something sweet” out, there’d be no ants in the room, as if the existence of a drop of Coke was enough to perpetuate the magical spawning of these ant infantries.

I could drop a f**king cake on my kitchen floor and get nothing for days.
I leave a drop of Coke in an elevated spot of her bedroom and I’m the Pied freakin' Piper of the ant world.

And it only got worse when we went out of town for my brother-in-law’s wedding in Pacaembu, São Paulo. Unfortunately, the dog and insect population’s just booming down there, the ants are practically on steroids… and oh yeah, they got f**king reptiles and amphibians, too.

Fortunately, we managed to score a bassinet with a nylon-type net that draped over it to keep the creepy crawly population from carrying our daughter off into the sunset. One night as I was shooing flies away from me by the dozen, I spotted a small frog climbing the wall of our room. After a few failed attempts, I managed to trap it on the wall with a glass cup. I took the frog outside, discarded him and figured that was the end of that.

I get back to the room and there’s a small lizard on the opposite wall, closest to the bedpost. This time, I didn’t bother catching it. I just killed the motherf**ker with a rolled up magazine and carried the debris to the garbage pail in the kitchen. I didn’t even make it to the pail before I saw another lizard of about the same size climbing the kitchen wall. This one was a bit craftier and eluded about four swat attempts before the fifth one basically severed the little bastard in half.

So, I cleaned up the crime scene, grabbed a soda can from the fridge and headed into the other room for a Coke and a smile. About two minutes later, I went back into the kitchen and I saw what I can only presume was the dead lizards’ father on the same kitchen wall, creeping me the f**k out. I say “father” because this one was roughly the size of a twenty ounce bottle of Pepsi that no magazine at my disposal was ever gonna come close to killing. So, by that time, I was just like, “Aw, f**k this,” headed for the bedroom, rolled up a bath towel, shoved it under the crack at the bottom of the door and went to bed, praying that I wouldn't wake up with a damn tarantula on my face.

DAMN BRAZILIAN BEDS: In Part One, I talked about a bed that I unintentionally broke with my big, fat ass. Because of that fateful incident a couple of years ago, I always climb gingerly into whatever bed I happen to be using during my time in Brazil. I can only assume that the bed I slept in during my stay in Pacaembu was glued together with pieces of Hubba Bubba because it only took my wife a second to climb in on the opposite side and cause the damn thing to collapse. I just couldn’t wait to get to my bed back in America.

You could drop a f**king piano on my American bed and the biggest problem you’d have would be dusting off the sheets.

I toss loose change on a Brazilian bed and it's in toothpicks.

ONIONS IN EVERYTHING: I’ll be b*tching about food for a while now, primarily because I haven’t really had a thoroughly satisfying meal in a month.

Here’s a concession: I’m a picky-ass eater; always have been. So, if I starved for part of my time in Brazil, it was my own damn fault. I acknowledge that. And I can’t stand the taste of onions and garlic. I hate them with a passion and though garlic isn’t as much of a problem, virtually everything has f**king onions in it. The dilemma presents itself when people invite us to dinner and cook food that’s action-packed with onions.

And I can’t be polite in these situations either, because I hate onions that much. I don’t recoil in terror or anything, but I’ll just wind up picking at whatever’s on my plate as I do my utmost to avoid the little white bastards, which are usually finely chopped and well-mixed into whatever I’m trying to dissect.

Again, I’m the b*tch in this scenario and I’ll always be first to admit that. I should just learn to stomach the f**kers, but I’m 32, set in my ways and a finicky-ass eater. If you want me to change my ways at this point, stick me on a deserted island with onion trees. Twenty bucks says I'll be eating grubworm salads and sandcastles before I even think about trying an onion.

McDONALD’S AND PIZZA SUCK: So, with the onion dilemma, what’s a guy to do? Well, there are the stand-bys of Mickey D’s and a few slices of the Za, except for the fact that they suck, too. The McDonald’s burgers aren’t made with the same type of meat and, believe it or not, they actually taste more like dried up sausage-flavored hockey pucks than burgers. And they can NOT do sodas. They just can’t pull it off. Their Diet Coke tastes exactly like bland grape juice and their ice cream tastes like lukewarm ass. It just ain’t cool when that’s what you taste when you’re expecting something crazy like, oh I don’t know, Diet Coke and ice cream.

What sucks is that you can’t even mask the horrible "burger" flavor with ketchup because they don’t have ketchup. Oh, they SAY it’s ketchup, but since when has red sugary water ever passed for ketchup? I missed my Heinz. The other thing you’d think would work in a food crisis is their pizza, but you’d be wrong…. again. The cheese sucks, they use absolutely no discernable tomato sauce whatsoever and they insist on packing the crusts with a “cheese” called catupiry. For those of you who have never tried catupiry, just imagine cheesy gnocchi, blended into a thick paste and crammed into the crust of your pizza.

Every variation of pizza they have is either fraught with onions, catupiry or other such fun nuggets of food, the very thought of which twist my stomach into braids. Again, "picky eater" b*tches about food. Fine, I accept that, but please don’t throw ten pounds of cheese on a circle of dough with whole green olives and four slices of half-ripened tomatoes and call it a pizza.

It’s a circle-shaped coronary with no sauce, folks.

NO VARIETY: Americans are really spoiled when it comes to food. I mean, we have every conceivable kind of food that exists, so our options are virtually limitless. Go to a foreign country, however, and variety in the cuisine seems to depend directly on how many foreign-born folks live there. Countries like the US and England have variety because a variety of people live there, so supply has to meet demand.

Brazil is made up of, wait for it......... Brazilians. There are very few foreign-born folks living there, so variety’s not exactly abundant. Regardless of what part of Brazil you go to, you pretty much find yourself looking at the same f**king menu. Rice and beans are a given, so you gotta deal. You’ll also find a significant number of “lanchonetes” which are like fried snack places. Same snacks; same drinks. Restaurants that aren’t either rodizio-style or restaurant slash pizzerias seem to be rare. And here again, you get pretty much the same types of food.

BRAZILIAN WOMEN HAVE INCREDIBLE BODIES: So, what is this? A complaint? Is the Guileless Vituperator gay or something? Nope. Just married... and yes, faithful to my wife. It’d just be nice if I could shut my "hot chick" radar off or, you know, throw it in the garbage or something. Instead, I’m in Brazil and gorgeous women (or images of them) are all over the place. Hot chicks can be seen on billboards, on display at magazine stands, on television shows and out walking the streets with belly shirts and short shorts on. And my wife will occasionally point out attributes of certain females that I’m doing my damndest to avoid looking at.

I love being married, I love my wife and I love being faithful to her... and I've got absolutely no problem with my diet or the salad I got in front of me. Just don’t make me eat it in Willy Wonka’s f**king Chocolate Factory. That's all I'm sayin.'

NO CAR-SEATS REQUIRED: Now, maybe this is the spoiled American in me, but I can’t believe that infants aren’t required to ride in car-seats in Brazil. We actually brought our car-seat with us, but we only used it when I insisted upon it. If you read Part One, you may recall the section on cars and how automatics are virtually non-existent. Couple that with the horrendous condition of like 70% of the roads in this country and I’m actually amazed that my little girl isn’t in traction by now.

I couldn’t even tell you the amount of times my daughter’s neck snapped forward, backward and from side-to-side with the herky-jerky cars on these ridiculous roads. It's all legal though.

I could have tied my girl to the bumper like a bunch of “Just Married” cans on strings and we’d have sooner been pulled over for the tinted windows than for the reckless infant neglect.

DRESSED TO THE NINES.... FOR T.G.I. FRIDAYS?: Apparently so. Reason? I’ve got a couple of hypotheses. For starters, and I don’t mean this to be an insult in the least, but the line between the well-to-do and the poor is sharper in the part of Brazil that I stayed for the past thirty days. My wife’s side of the family’s never been affluent, which is one of the reasons why I like them so much. They’re authentic people who work very hard for what they have; not like these bratty teens who are partying off of Daddy’s money, flashing their digital cameras, using their cell phones and dressing for success.

Friday’s maintains their rate from American dollars to Brazilian Reais, so for the majority of Brazilians, a dinner at Friday’s is a bit too much of a blow to the monthly budget. You’ll rarely see slum kids dining there, but you do see the priviledged kids hanging out there, trying so hard to show everyone else that they belong where the money is by dressing like champs. I’m not rich, but my American dollar goes farther here, so a dinner at Friday’s doesn’t exactly put a bullet hole in my budget. I just don't see the need to be a poser while I'm knocking back some flavor.

A REAL BRAZILIAN SOCCER GAME: I had expressed an interest in going to an authentic Brazilian soccer game, so a few members of my wife's family took me to see Santo André hosting their team, Santos. Members of my wife's family either cheer for Santos or Corinthians. But here's where it gets weird. Most oftentimes, women and children who may never even watch soccer will always tell you what team they "cheer" for. And, near as I can tell, it's hereditary. If your folks are "Santistas," odds are you'll be one, too. Americans like myself might be nuts about football, but we're not psychotic about it. Brazilians, on the other hand, are damn near homicidal when it comes to soccer.

One More Quick Side Story: My brother-in-law had just come back from his honeymoon and managed just enough energy to drive us to someone's birthday party. By the time he arrived, he crashed on the bed. As a goof, this Santos fan was draped with Corinthians paraphrenalia so that photos could be snapped. It'd be like people draping Indianapolis Colts' sh*t on me, knowing full well that I hate Peyton Manning with a passion. Yet, I'd see the humor in it and have a good laugh. My brother-in-law could have CLINICALLY KILLED everybody in the room when he woke up. He was that pissed. In fact, I think he's still fuming over it. It's that serious in Brazil.

Anyway, the stadium in Santo André has one side that's covered with a roof and the other side is in the open air. Now get this. They separate home team fans from visiting fans. No bullsh*t. Home team gets the covered part (naturally), so the visitors had to endure the rain in cheap ass parkas that outdoor vendors sold them for less than a buck a pop. The family members who were kind enough to take me to this game were Santos fans.... who'd decided to sit on the dry, Santo André side.

And all of them warned me not to let on that we were backing Santos (who actually won 2-1 that night). For those few fans who dared to bear the colors of the opposing team, they literally had half of an entire stadium berating the f**k out of them until military police escorted them out.

I swear I'm not making any of this stuff up. They even made an announcement about two minutes before the game ended to tell the fans which exits they should take, depending on what team they were rooting for. I once asked the family if Santos ever played Corinthians. They said yes. I asked if I could go to one of those games sometime and everybody looked at me as if I'd just shoved the barrel of a gun in my mouth. Apparently with the multitude of die-hard fans supporting both teams, I'd be safer walking into Compton with a white hood on my head than going to one of these games.

So anyway, I'm back home again and feeling good, now that I've had a couple of enjoyable onionless meals and a few good nights of sleep that didn't involve crispy critters crawling into collapsing beds. It's still freakin' cold where I live, but it's better than losing seven hundred gallons of water in thirty days through my sunburned pores.

I'd tell you whether or not the grass is greener over here, but first I'll need to wait for the snow and ice to melt. Until then, my kvetching is complete.