New to A Lady Reveals Nothing? You've missed SO MUCH. Not to worry. Every Sunday, I dig through the archives to repost an old favorite. Mostly because I'm too lazy to come up with new content every single day. This story originally appeared on February 20, 2011 when I was living in Costa Rica:
So today I made plans to make brunch for George, a dude who has had Nicole and I for dinner no less than three times without a returned favor. Since Nicole had other arrangements, my plan was to ride mybici-moto over to Tamarindo and on the way stop at the vegetable market in Villa Real for some supplies. Well the stupid thing hasn't been running properly and it killed on me a few meters from my place. So I decided that maybe I flooded it. And then my new friend Dustin suggested taking out the spark plug and making sure it was clean and dry and then trying again but I didn't have that tool. And then the gate guard dude told me in Spanish something I didn't quite get and then my friend Katie's boyfriend Jon told me to start it several times with no gas rolling to clean the gas out of the carburator and that didn't work either. Stupid machine. All I ask is a couple ten mile rides out of you and all I get is sputter.
But I was desperate to get out of the apartment today and on down to Tamarindo. SO I decided to take the bus, but at the last minute changed my mind, because the bus here is not really on a schedule and who knows when it comes? I decided to hitchhike. I've never ever ever hitchhiked in my life. Seems like something I should scratch off my life's to-do list. Facing another fear, perhaps. Well, I decided I was in the right place for it. People here do it all the time. Grandmas. Little kids. It's how everybody gets around. Why not me? So I grabbed my crap and stood on the road with my thumb out, determined not to be afraid, to do it like the locals do. I could be selective about what car I got into. Right? Ten cars passed. Nothing. It dawned on me that they were being selective. Ha.
Finally, a car pulled over. Filled with two shady sketch old dudes and one high weird young one. I was hot and the sun was burning me, so I called George, walked around to the back of the car, read off the license plate to him for safety, and got in the car.
Danger.
My middle name. I was feeling pretty good. I would have patted myself on the back, except my patting hand was clenched around my wallet in a death-like grip, and my back was stuck to the cheap vinyl seat.
Adventure.
Now my job was to get these guys to like me so they wouldn't dream of hurting me, so I used my basic Spanish to find out all about them and their kids and blah blah blah. Then we started stopping. Miles from my destination. I got scared. 'Why are we stopping?', I thought, and got ready to jump out and do the tuck and roll. Suddently the guy next to me (the one with only four teeth) got out and paid the taxi driver.
That was when I realized I was in a taxi.
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