Monday, July 12, 2010

Viva the USA

Joleen and I had a splendid, platonic date a little over a week ago. We went to Freedom Fest in downtown Provo to check out the festivities and assorted random booths. Joleen and I both indulged in an impulse buy: a new frilly bag and a tie. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out who bought what. One of the booths was advertising the "Constitution Party." We weren't sure if the constitution party was a political party or some kind of gathering where people sit around eating apple pie and discussing the constitution. I would have asked what the constitution party was all about, but fear of being given a pamphlet kept me in ignorance. Whether it's a political party of a social gathering, I was able to ascertain from the both that it involves old people and lots of knickknacks with the American flag on them.

As we wandered around a vagrant looking man approached us and asked were he could buy some cigarettes. Joleen responded first saying that she didn't know where he could buy cigarettes (although I have my suspicions that she did know where he could buy some). He politely thanked us and left. As the vagrant walked away I noticed that he was carrying a large piece of cardboard with writing on it. It said, "Why lie? I need money for beer." I appreciated his honesty, but gave him nothing.

I've wanted to buy a bike for some time, but am always too cheap (frugal, maybe?) to buy one. The last bike I had was given to me for free and it is so hard to spend more money on a new bike than I paid for the previous one. Today I was looking up bikes on Craig's List, but I quickly got distracted and instead searched employment listings in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Not because I'm interested in working there, but just out of pure curiosity. I found the following listing titled "teach me spanish on skype":
"i want young pretty mexican girl to teach me spanish on skype i will western union you the money if we can make a deal i will pay 20 dollars for each 1 hour lesson i want young pretty mexican girl to teach me you will have to teach me like a 5 yr old very slow only at night ok thx."
When I first read this ad I was little creeped out by the man (most likely in his forties, overweight, and smelly) wanting to Skype with a pretty Mexican girl only at night. Then I was a little curious wondering if anyone would respond to this ad. My last thought was being disappointed in myself for not being a pretty Mexican girl. I would love to make $20 an hour teaching someone Spanish, but I don't meet this man's only requirement. However, I'm considering responding to him anyway with an offer to teach him punctuation and capitalization rules in English instead.