Uruguay: Post 3

A repeated knock awoke me at my door at around 9 am or so. Concerned but expected, whoever was at my door was finally here to slaughter me, execution style, retrieve my small intestine, and stuff it with an array of native herbs, rice, and my internal organs. From here, I would likely be sold in sausage form to someone like JP, who would find great pleasure in grilling me at his lakeside summer house while fully armed with some sort of cannabis product. As I ignored the knocking, it continuously got louder, which prompted me to put on pants and not a shirt. I chose to ignore wearing a shirt for cautionary purposes as I concluded that once the intruder was exposed to my muscular frame, they would leave the property immediately with such terror. I opened the door ready to bash the trespassers head in with my bare fist, hopeful of exposing brain tissue and all, but instead was greeted with, “Well, it’s good to see you’re still alive.” It was Chris, the gay 70-year-old British man whose deceased partner Patrick was in an LSD ring and whom I’d bought blood sausage and Tannat wine with just two days ago. Relieved MS-13 gang members had not traveled 5,000 miles on LATAM airlines from JFK to harvest my liver to sell on the black market; I invited Chris inside. “Coffee, tea, can I get you anything?”, I figured offering Chris some form of caffeinated beverage is something a responsible adult would do and an appropriate gesture for 9 in the morning. “It just so happens I am a little bit of a coffee addict myself!” Wow, I was off to a great start. Knowing Chris was British, I knew he would further appreciate my usage of the French press I had found under a bag of arborio rice the day before.

Why Chris was here at 9 in the morning without any form of notice had yet to be determined. In a tone carrying noticeable loneliness, Chris answered why he had traveled 25 minutes to my house. “I thought we could travel to Sebastian, a small city around two hours away tomorrow if you’re up for it?”. Dealing with inevitable loneliness as well as resorting to cracking walnuts for fun, I agreed. “There’s only one thing. It’s going to sound like I’m using you but I need to take out 4,000 pesos in cash and the only way possible for a foreigner like myself is providing two forms of identification, so bring your passport”. This was somewhat worrisome. Even if Chris kidnaps me tomorrow and steals my passport, leaving me stranded in Uruguay with no form of legal re-entry into the United States, it will still be more fun than cracking walnuts with a brick. For dinner last night, I treated myself to Chicken stew, walnuts, and bagged milk. Dairy is something I generally despise as the concept of drinking a white liquid that came out of a cows udder is preposterous. My supply of pear nectar was gone. The bottle of Guardia Vieja Tannat wine I’d purchased with Chris tasted like kombucha. My consumption of the bagged milk, by all means, was not by choice but from a place of desperation. I finished the meal with a viewing of Molto Mario, a Viceland original staring Mario Batali. Filmed before full public disavowment when he was just a coke head chef who could make ravioli in orange crocks as a fifty-year-old man, the show’s informative. Personal hygiene is fastly deteriorating as I want to return looking like Casey Affleck when he was doing press interviews for Manchester by the Sea.