A Tale of Two Days

[I meant to post this the night of August 25 but technology failed,  as it has been doing quite a bit lately...] 

I'm in Santiago again, at this cabana called Villa Bahamas with the goddess of fun. She is being her usual bubbly self, twerking to a song called Envidia as I watch the Jazz play the Nuggets.

This premium cabana is brand new. As such, the place is going to run me over $100 tonight but the digs are posh and the food is ridiculously good. I literally just had the best chicken parmesan I've ever had in my life; it was love at first bite. And the hot shower was exactly what I needed after the day I had...

But let's roll the clock back to yesterday, shall we? I went to Playa Sosua with Branden, Chris, and Livelife. We went on the glass bottom boat, then had seafood dinner on the beach as the sun turned the warm Caribbean water to molten gold. We took our high spirits along with us to Ahnvee [I drove despite the curfew! YOLO!] where we shared a bottle of Hennesy, then finished the night bullshiting poolside over a pack of menthol Newports. Basically we had the time of our lives out here.

Then this AM, as I'm dropping Chris off at the airport I run over...

...sorry about that, I'm back. The goddess required a sacrifice. Where was I?

Oh yes, this morning I ran over a curb and blew a tire at the airport. Ah man... whole sidewall, boom! Just getting the spare out from beneath the vehicle required Dominican ingenuity. I literally had no idea how to get the tire loose until the security guard showed me this little hidden area where the pointy end of the tire iron goes in like a key and you twist it like a corkscrew to drop the tire. Had I gotten a flat anywhere but at the airport I would have been shit outta luck.

After I get the donut on and dap my guy Chris, Branden and I head down the road very slowly in search of a replacement tire. We see a small used tire shop off to the right. It was basically a guy, an air gun, and his shack full of tires. For 2000 pesos he swapped the donut for a real tire and got us back on the road. He even made sure we had proper pressure on all four wheels. Awesome experience.

But I still had to contend with the long running issue of my phone not charging. On my way to get the wireless charging plate, my GPS flunks out. No internet. I try to summon forth another week worth of data but that fails to fix the problem. So now I'm at my buddy's house practically frothing at the mouth over how shitty this day had become. I then calm down and think clearly enough to swap SIM cards so that I could at least use my extremely overpriced Verizon internet and find my way to the phone repair store. The guy there spoken perfect English. He sent an employee to another store for a charging plate. While that was going on, he cleaned the port on my phone with a spray and one of those metal, hooked dental scrapers. There was a wad of lenty, black gunk in there, two years' worth, which once removed allowed the phone to charge correctly. But I purchased the charging plate anyway. The phone is life when you're traveling through the unknown.

And then there was that aha moment. The guy cleaning my phone was a smart guy, you could just tell talking to him he had a wicked IQ. He tells me I'm lucky everything is going exactly how it was, and that my perception of bad luck and timing may actually be good luck and great timing. I could be experiencing a small series of minor catastrophes to avoid a real major one. I had to agree.

Ironically it started pouring rain as Branden and I left the shop. I prayed my phone did not get wet. We drove west towards Santiago and out of the rain band. Once in sunny Santiago, it became clear to me Branden had only the most basic and minimal idea of how to get to his Airbnb. By minimal I mean a screenshot of an address. If you know anything about Dominican addresses, they're practically useless. For whatever reason he did not buy a SIM card and was relying only on wifi so we couldn't navigate using his phone. Long story short I had to figure out a way to call the property manager on WhatsApp from my phone so we could get coordinates.

I couldn't get him out of my car and into that apartment fast enough. I needed this day to end. The smell of his chain smoking lingered in the air.

At 5 PM I picked up the goddess and with hunger in my belly and thirst on my dry lips I limped across the finish line.

So here I am, alive and well in a love hotel, a laughing survivor of a crazy day in which many people, friends and strangers alike, played a role and helped me get through it all. I probably sprouted a new gray hair or two but I'm just super happy everything balanced out.

Life. Health. Liberty. Wisdom. Love. Prosperity. Peace.