Buena Suerte

I was recently visiting Ecuador, and decided one day to go for a giant walk around the city of Quito. It looked like it might rain, but maybe not, so I rolled up my raincoat as tiny as it could get and stuffed it into my fanny pack, which you may recall I single-handedly made cool again back in 2014. And now they're all the rage. But I digress. Stuffing my raincoat in there meant I could no longer fit my wallet, so I grabbed about $160 in cash and my AMEX card and set out. 

I knew that I ought to keep my wits about me while I meandered the city and for the most part I didn't encounter that many people. I found a park and found an adorable group of old men playing giant marbles. I mean there was probably a better name for it but from what I could tell they were throwing giant balls into a circle and trying to knock the other balls out. Suddenly they all left! but they were just walking to the next spot to throw the balls from. It was cute. I wanted to sit next to this guy for a while but I didn't know if the tree would break and that would have made me die of embarrassment so I didn't do it. 

After that I started walking toward the basilica and I felt relieved because 1) I had been there the day before and 2) I was excited to try the best sandwich shop in Quito according to my friend and 2b) I was starving.

I felt something hit the top of my head, kind of like a tickle, and I looked up and saw nothing. A woman behind me said, in broken English, "oh, a bird pooped on you". I was like UGH CRAP, but the woman had some tissues and she was sort of helping me wipe some of it out of my hair. Another older man came up too and offered his tissues. Apparently some of the poop got on my sweater too, which made me sad because it's my cute favorite sweater and it's cream colored and I spent way too much money on it. I was trying to stay positive and so I said in Spanish "well they say it's good luck when a bird poops on you". And the old man laughed. He said "yep! it's good luck!"

Then a kid (who I had seen earlier and who looked very local but was carrying a paper map which I thought was really weird) came up and started helping me too. He explained that the poop was all over the back of my sweater and helped me take it off so he could show it to me. Except I was wearing my fanny pack like Micah taught me to, cross body and on my back - so he had to take my purse off and hand it to me so that he could then help me with the sweater. The purse had poop on it too YUCK and so then the lady started wiping that. 

The kid showed me my sweater and it was COVERED in poop - I had to take a picture because I couldn't believe how ruined my sweater was and although I was so sad I also found it funny and I wanted to get a picture of it. 

They cleaned me up as best as their tiny tissues would allow and then all went their separate ways. It was only then that I had a little cry because I was SO HUNGRY and now I would have to get a cab back to my apartment AND find some laundry soap because there was none AND there was poop on the back of my pants too and I didn't want to get a cab all dirty. So I took my hands and sort of wiped down the back of my pants and when they felt dry I hailed a cab.

Safely in the back of the taxi, I got a text message from AMEX. Did I try to buy $2500 worth of furniture from a store in Ecuador? Uhhhh, no --- and probably somebody had stolen my card number at some point on this trip or whatever...how irritating, so I called AMEX back to tell them I had not. The customer service representative asked me for the code on the back of my card and so I went in my fanny pack to grab that and realized my card was gone. And my cash. 

I figured that stupid kid with the map must have nabbed my card and cash while he was taking my fanny pack off. Oh that made me sad, especially since I now had no way to pay the cab. I was still on the phone with the customer service agent and started crying AGAIN because nobody likes being robbed.

I explained to the cab driver that I would was robbed and would have to go up to my apartment to get my cash card and then hit the ATM in the base of my building. Then I explained the whole story about getting pooped on by a bird and then robbed to the doorman, and to the man in the elevator and oh boy was I laugh-crying the whole time. Then I walked to the store to get laundry soap and got back to my apartment and used dishsoap in the sink to spot clean the sweater. 

As I was examining the pants, and the sweater and finally had some distance and perspective I realized what kind of a pterodactyl must have pooped that amount of poop on me and then disappeared into thin air...because I never actually saw a bird and then googled "bird poop robbery Quito" and this came up.

They got me. Good luck, my ass.